In England the inspectors of public prisons had made two or more able and extensive reports in favor of the Separate System, where the principles on which it is founded are developed with fulness and clearness. Parliament had passed a law authorizing the creation of a model prison on this system at Pentonville. This had been built, and also other prisons on the same system in different parts of the kingdom.
Mr. Dwight. Will the gentleman please to state the difference between the prisons at Philadelphia and Pentonville?
Mr. Sumner. With great pleasure, so far as any exists. The two are founded on the same principle of separation, though that of Pentonville is probably administered with less austerity than that of Philadelphia. They may differ in degree, but not in kind.
I return to a review of what had been done in 1843, when I was interrupted.
In France the subject had undergone most thorough discussion, in journals, in pamphlets, among professional men, and in official documents. The Government and the highest authorities in state and in medicine had declared in favor of the Separate System. Their conclusions were founded on ample inquiries by commissions visiting America, England, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Prussia, Spain, and even Turkey. In 1836, Count Gasparin, Minister of the Interior, wrote a circular informing the prefects of the departments that the Government had decided to adopt exclusively the Separate System in the maisons d'arrêt, or what may be called the county jails. In 1839 the grave question of the influence of this system on health, bodily and mental, was submitted to the highest living authority, the Academy of Medicine, who referred it to a committee consisting of MM. Pariset, Moré, Villermé, Louis, and Esquirol. Their report, drawn up by the last named distinguished authority, expressly declared that "separate imprisonment by day and night, with labor, and conversation with the overseers and inspectors, does not abridge the life of the prisoners, nor compromise their reason." This report afterwards received the sanction of the learned body to which it was addressed. In 1840, M. Rémusat, Minister of the Interior, submitted the project of a law for the building of prisons on the principle of separation. This was sustained by a masterly report from M. de Tocqueville, dated June 25, 1840. It was followed in 1841 by another circular from the Home Department, communicating an atlas of plans to the departments as their guide in building prisons. I hold one of them in my hand now.
Mr. Dwight, looking at the atlas, said, "The cells here are on a circumference, whereas in Philadelphia they are on radii."