pf 
Vaux.] 658 [June 20, 
lated and warmed, and ingeniously provided with means for affording a 
continual supply of excellent water, to insure the most perfect cleanliness ° 
of every prisoner and his apartment. * They are, moreover, so arranged 
as to be inspected and protected without a military guard, usually though 
unnecessarily employed in establishments of this kind in most other 
States. 
‘Tn these chambers no individual, however humble or elevated, can be 
confined, so long as the public liberty can endure, but upon conviction of 
a known and well-defined offence, by a verdict of a jury of the country, 
and under the sentence of a court fora specific time. The terms of im- 
prisonment it is believed can be apportioned to the nature of every crime 
with considerable accuracy, and will no doubt be measured in that mer- 
ciful degree which has formerly characterized the modern penal legisla- 
tion of Pennsylvania. Where, then, allow me to inquire, is there in this 
system the least resemblance to that dreadful receptacle constructed in 
Paris during the reign of Charles the Fi‘th, and which at different 
periods, through four centuries and a half, was an engine of oppression and 
torture to thousands of innocent persons; or by what detortion can it be 
compared to the inquisitorial courts and prisons that were instituted in 
Italy, Portugal and Spain, between the years 1251 and 15372 
“With such accommodations as I have mentioned, and with the mod- 
erate duration of imprisonment contemplated on the Pennsylvania plan, 
[ cannot admit the possibility of the consequences which thy pamphlet pre- 
dicts, ‘that a great number of individuals will probably be put to death 
by the superinduction of diseases inseparable from such mode of treat:- 
ment.’ Ido not apprehend either the physical maladies so vividly por- 
trayed, or the mental sufferings which, with equal confidence it is prom- 
ised, shall ‘cause the mind to rush back upon itself and drive reason from 
her seat.’ On the contrary, it is my belief that less bodily indisposition, 
and less mortality, will attend separate confinement than imprisonment, 
upon the present method, for which some reasons might be given that 
would be improper here to expose. 
““By separate confinement, therefore, it is intended to punish those who 
will not control their wicked passions and propensities, thereby violating 
divine and human laws; and, moreover, to effect this punishment, with- 
out terminating the life of the culprit in the midst of his wickedness, or 
making a mockery of justice by forming such into communities of har- 
dened and corrupting transgressors, who enjoy each other’s society, and 
contemn the very power which thus vainly seeks their restoration and 
idly calculates to afford security to the State from their outrages in the 
future, 
“In separate confinement every prisoner is placed beyond the possibility 
of being made more corrupt by his imprisonment, since the least associa- 
* The exact size of the chambers is eight feet by twelve feet, the highest point 
of the ceiling sixteen feet, The yards are cigut feet by twenty feet, 
