Recollections of Windsor Prison; / Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection

by of Vermont John Reynolds

RECOLLECTIONS
OF
WINDSOR PRISON;

CONTAINING
Sketches of its History and Discipline;

WITH
APPROPRIATE STRICTURES,

AND
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS REFLECTIONS.

BY JOHN REYNOLDS.

Third Edition.

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY A. WRIGHT.
1839.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834,
BY ANDREW WRIGHT,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

"Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view."

In following this suggestion of the poet, I have been compelled to "extenuate," and I have had no temptation to "set down aught in malice." The world of gloomy horrors through which my memory has been roving for the materials of this volume, cannot receive a deepening shade from either reality or fiction; and my conscientious and prudential object has been, to take the brightest truths which my subjects have required, and let the darker ones remain untold. For the correctness of the facts which I have recorded, as to all essential points, I hold myself responsible; and as to my strictures and reasonings, I am willing they should pass for just what they are worth.

In sending these Recollections abroad, I am governed by principles which are equally remote from the considerations of either hope or fear. All my hopes, from my fellow men, are gone out in the cold and gloomy damps of despair; and having long endured their deepest scorn, I have nothing more to fear from them. My sole object is to plead the cause of suffering humanity, and drag iniquity from her dark retreats out into the view of mankind. I have also aimed to rend the mask from spiritual wickedness; and rouse the energies of benevolence in favor of the wretched. My cause is a good one—would to God it could find an abler advocate!

In noticing the opinions of others, I have been unrestrained, but candid; and in touching the conduct of some, I have endeavored to render to each his due—praise, to whom praise, and censure, to whom censure—and I am willing to step into the same scale myself.

I am well aware that this book will create me enemies, and put the tongue of slander in motion; but none of these things move me. The bird that is wounded will flutter. On the other hand, I expect to obtain some friends by this work; but this has been no inducement with me to publish it. Finally, I can assure both friends and foes, that, if any good should result from this volume to the cause of benevolence in any way, I may take my pen again. At any rate, I shall have the satisfaction of having done my duty, and performed my vow; and this satisfaction is of more value to me than any other reward which may result from my labors.

THE AUTHOR.

Boston, April, 1834.

GEHENNA IN MINIATURE.
ORIGIN OF PRISONS.

Egypt is said to have been the cradle of letters; and happy had it been for her history, if she had never cradled any thing worse. There are the first and oldest pyramids, the sphynxes, and the labyrinths; and there was erected the first prison of which history has taken notice. A cruel and heartless people, they deserve the infamy of corrupting the principles of penal justice, and of transforming their prisons into theatres of the most fiend-like barbarity, and unhallowed revenge.

With the same spirit which led the scholar to pry into the hieroglyphic mysteries of this land of wonders, has the genius of her prison discipline been copied by the nations of the earth, till the whole world is filled with these terrestrial hells. But as this sketch leads me rather to the contemplation of Penitentiaries than prisons in general, I shall turn my thoughts to them in particular.