New York Prison Association.—
We have seen only newspaper reports of the proceedings at the eighth anniversary of this active and very useful Association. We understand that their condemnation of the yoke and the shower, as modes of punishment, is very emphatic and unqualified, and among the interesting facts which are drawn from their report, we select the following:—
In the city of New York, since 1848, disorderly conduct (in almost every instance the result of strong drink) has steadily increased from 703 to 2,660, or 278 per cent.; intoxication has increased about 75 per cent., and the two together from 5,579 to 11,280. By a comparison of the prison statistics for the last five years, it appears that crimes against property have increased only about 50 per cent.; but that crimes against the person have increased 129 per cent., or from 1,300 in 1843 to 2,920 in 1852.
The increase has been the greatest in the highest crimes. Thus we find assaults to kill were 25 in 1848, and 39, 59, 61 and 75 in 1852, or three-fold. Manslaughter, in 1848, was 3, and then 4, 16, 11 in 1852, almost four-fold. Murder in 1848 was 9, and 9, 15, 21 and 56 in 1852, or more than six-fold.
Ninety per cent. of the whole number committed to this prison during the past year, were intemperate! The returns of sixteen State Prisons, for the year 1851, give us a grand total of 4,507 prisoners, 3,006 of whom were imprisoned for offences against property, and 784 against the person.
It is stated that there is a greater number of cases of bigamy and perjury in the State of New York, than in all the other fifteen States; there being twenty-one cases of bigamy in New York, and only fifteen in the other States; and seventeen cases of perjury to three in all the other States.
The average period of confinement in Connecticut is six years, seven months, twenty-nine days; and in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania it is only two years, six months and three days.