PHILADELPHIA. 
15 
death he was perhaps himself witness to but 
a few weeks before, A month does not pass 
over in England without repeated executions ; 
and there is scarcely a vagabond to be met 
with in the country, who has not seen a fellow 
creature suspended from the gallows. We all 
know what little good effect such spectacles 
produce. But immured in darkness and so¬ 
litude, the prisoner suffers pangs worse than 
death a hundred times in the day : he is left 
to his own bitter reflections; there is no one 
thing to divert his attention, and he endeavours 
in vain to escape from the horrors which con¬ 
tinually haunt his, imagination. In such a si¬ 
tuation the most hardened offender is soon re- 
duced to a state of repentance. 
But punishment by imprisonment, according 
to the laws of Pennsylvania, is imposed, not 
only as an expiation of past offences, and an 
example to the guilty part of society, but 
for another purpose, regarded by few penal 
codes in the world, the reform of the criminal. 
The regulations of the gaol, are calculated to 
promote this effect as soon as possible, so that 
the. building, indeed, deserves the name of 
a penitentiary house more than that of a gaol. 
As soon as a criminal is committed to the pri¬ 
son he is made to wash ; his hair is shorn; and 
if not decently clothed, he is furnished with 
dean apparel; then he is thrown into a so- 
