Vaux.) 660 [June 20, 
developed. The criticisms which were made by those who doubted its 
practicability, who opposed its principle, who believed it would be injuri- 
ous in its effects on those subjected to its operation, and who feared the 
cost would not pay for its benefits, were continued, and, strange it is to 
say, yet continue, though the experience of half a century refutes them. 
The philosophy of ‘‘separate or individual treatment’’ of prisoners dur- 
ing incarceration is the basis on which this system rests. 
The originators and early advocators of a method of convict punish- 
ment, which as they then knew was only to be the non-association of all 
criminals in a common jail, were content if this reform could be secured. 
Such a plan having been adopted and putin operation, the principle of 
the experiment of constant separation of individual convicts in prison be- 
came the subject of careful study. 
The objections were magnified as it became apparent that the idea of 
making profit out of the associate labor of prisoners was, though a super- 
ficial, a popular view, addressed to both the prejudices and the susceptibili- 
ties of the tax-payer. In every other State then, but Pennsylvania, the 
congregate system was accepted because it was claimed that these prisons 
could be self-supporting, ‘This delusion is now being dispelled. Yet 
these self-supporting prisons demanded the public favor, and to secure 
this result prisoners were sold to contractors, who paid a fixed sum per 
diem for their toil, and made from their associate work in shops, large 
profits for these employers. So great a stimulus to the greed of those in- 
terested, and the indifference of the public, at last resulted in changing 
the Pittsburg Penitentiary from the separate into a congregate prison. 
It was left to the Eastern State Penitentiary to defend the separate meth- 
od. The progress made inthe adaptation of punishment to each individual 
case, as experience and careful study demonstrated was practically for the 
best interest of the prisoner and the community, became singularly satis- 
. factory. 
From 1845 to 1855 the advance in the development of the promised ad- 
vantages to the convict and society of this reform in prison discipline, 
marked a new era in the history of convict punishment, 
During this period the experience gained by the advocates of the sepa- 
rate system enabled the authorities of the Eastern Penitentiary to ascer- 
tain the improvements that were necessary both in the architecture of the 
building, and the method of administering the discipline. 
The corridors and the cells as they then existed were found to be ill- 
suited to the special mode of management then being inaugurated. To 
indicate these changes, it may be stated that the rooms now, 1884, con- 
structed for each prisoner, are eight feet wide, eighteen feet long, fourteen 
feet high, with double skylights in the ceiling, each five feet long by five 
and one-half inches inside width. There are air-tubes near the floor for 
outside ventilation, Each room has gas, fresh water, and a closet with 
perfect, drainage, through a pipe four inches in diameter, into a ten-inch 
