NOTES ON PENITENTIARIES. IS? 



with the aid of machinery, in some instances on a very large scale ; the whole being 

 enclosed in high outer walls, vigilantly guarded by armed sentries. The convicts wear a pe- 

 culiar striped prison uniform, of coarse woollen fabric, manufactured within the prisons. 

 Their movements to and fro at the regular hours in the daily routine of the life of the pri- 

 sons, are all made in single file, with the lock-step, and with the heads turned all in one 

 direction, facing the constant eye of the keeper of each respective division, for the prevention 

 of intercommunication. At Sing-Sing they eat their meals singly in their cells ; at Auburn, 

 in large eating halls, at tables at which they are seated back to back, and fronting only their 

 keepers. The food is plentiful and healthy, though coarse. A scrupulous cleanhness reigns 

 through every nook and corner of the establishments. The health of the prisoners is good ; 

 the average of deaths being about two per cent per annum. Each prison is provided with 

 a chaplain, whose whole time is devoted to his interesting though arduous pastoral charge, 

 and under whose direction they receive instruction on the Sabbath in Sunday schools. The 

 cells have always been supplied with bibles ; since the accession of the present executive of 

 the state, and by his direction, other books have been added, suitably selected for instruction 

 and moral improvement. For many years the establishments have not only defrayed the cost 

 of their own maintenance, but have continued to earn annually a large excess to the benefit 

 of the general revenues of the state. The mode employed of using the labor of the con- 

 victs is to let it out at certain rates per diem, for fixed periods, to contractors in the different 

 branches of industry pursued. 



The proper limits of the present occasion forbid the expansion of this brief account with 

 any further details of the operation of the system, whose gradual groveth has been thus 

 related. As has been already remarked, the conflict of opinion between the supporters of 

 the Auburn system, of social labor in silence by day, with solitary confinement by night, and 

 the Pennsylvania system, of uninterrupted solitary confinement with labor, has been carried 

 on with no small degree of both earnestness and ability. The advocacy of the Auburn sys- 

 tem has been chiefly sustained by the Boston Prison Discipline Society, the annual reports of 

 which have continued, from the institution of that society in 1825, to hold it up to the admi- 

 ration and imitation of the world, in terms of unqualified eulogium. The prisons have been 

 visited by many thousands of strangers, from foreign countries as well as from the other 

 states of this Union, attracted by the celebrity which they have acquired ; and even those 

 whose preference has inclined in favor of the theory of the Pennsylvania system, have not 

 failed to accord a high degree of praise to the many admirable features characterizing ours, 

 as well as to the excellent management with which they have been practically administered. 

 The following States have since erected penitentiaries for the most part in imitation of the 

 model thus afforded : Maine, New-Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Mary- 

 land, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois and Ohio ; together with the two provinces of 

 Upper and Lower Canada ; not to speak of numerous city prisons and county jails. 



We are far from desirous of pronouncing even an opinion in relation to this controversy. 

 There are undoubtedly some features in the Auburn system which its best friends would 



