58 JVew Publications. Jan., 



Before we dismiss this report, we feel it our duty to give the 

 sentiments of the author, as he has expressed them on the last 

 page of the Report. The remarks are in our opinion of great 

 value, and will deserve the consideration of all concerned in le- 

 gislation, or in the management of those who are undergoing the 

 sentence of the law for their crimes. 



" The convict well knows that by his sentence he is degraded as 

 a felon, cut off from society, and stripped of his right of citizen- 

 ship. That he is to be confined a given number of years at hard 

 labor, without fee or reward. All this he knows he must bear, and 

 he very naturally feels that his punishment is sufficiently severe. 

 But he also knows that cold, hunger, unnecessary flagellation and 

 all cruelty, however inflicted, forms no part of his sentence. 

 When, therefore he sees those in authority inflicting tortures at 

 which his own hardened nature revolts, he readily concludes that 

 himself, though a felon, is a better man than his keeper, who holds 

 a reponsible office. This conclusion leads him to the conviction 

 that merit is without its reward and promotion is obtained by vil- 

 lany. A belief that the world is as bad or worse than himself ; 

 that he is a victim of oppression, rather than a subject of peniten- 

 tiary reform, is soon adopted. An impatience of restraint and 

 a hatred of all law and its officers speedily follows. He conse- 

 quently leaves the prison much worse than he entered it ; at war 

 with his race and urged on by a desire of avenging his former in- 

 juries. His subsequent conviction and return to 'the prison, which 

 soon follows his discharge, is then triumphantly urged as a proof 

 that he merited the cruelties inflicted and even much more. This 

 routine of severity of discipline, discharges from prison and subse- 

 quent convictions, instead of awakening a suspicion as to the cor- 

 rectness of the policy pursued, seems only to have confii'med its 

 advocates in a conviction of its justice ; to have rendered keepers 

 more callous, and the public more indifferent. 



That the power of kindness is the strongest known to human 

 nature, is too sensibly felt and too well understood by all, to be 

 taught as a new discovered truth. Under its and softening influ- 



