Mr. Sumner. In some of the plans the cells are on a circumference, and in some on radii. Does this make any difference in the system?
I will proceed. In 1843, 17th April, Count Duchatel, in behalf of the Government, introduced a bill providing for the extension of the principle of separation to all the maisons de force throughout France. It was calculated that this could not be carried into execution at an expense less than one hundred and seven millions of francs, or nearly twenty millions of dollars. At the same time it appeared that the extensive prison La Roquette, in Paris, had been for several years in most successful operation. Still further, in 1843, it was stated by M. de Tocqueville, that, since 1838, thirty prisons, containing two thousand seven hundred and forty cells on the Separate System, had been built, or were in an advanced state of building, in the departments of France. Yet nothing of all this is in our Report.
In Poland, it appears that a prison on the Separate System was commenced as long ago as 1831, and has been in successful operation since 1835, while in 1843 appropriations were made to build three more. Nothing of this appears in our Report.
In Denmark, after an elaborate report from a committee, a royal ordinance declared, in 1841, that "all houses of detention to be built for the accused shall be on the Separate System, and that all new constructions or reconstructions which the old prisons shall require shall be on this system, to prepare for its general adoption." Again, another ordinance followed, June 25, 1842, on the report of a commission that had visited England, directing the building of certain prisons on this system. Our Report contains nothing of this.
Look at Norway. In 1838 a commission from this region was sent to visit the principal prisons in England, Ireland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Denmark. Its report was made in 1841. "Its unanimous and absolute advice was, to demand the introduction into the prisons of Norway of the Pennsylvania System." Here again our Report is silent.
In Sweden, the States General declared, in 1841, that the Separate System was the most rational, and voted 1,300,000 florins for the construction of new prisons on this system. Already before this time, the present King of Sweden, then Crown Prince, had secured a new honor for his throne by writing a book on prisons, where he compared the Auburn and Pennsylvania Systems, and gave his preference to the latter. Of this our Report says not a word.
Here, as I refer to this royal author, let me pause to offer him my tribute of gratitude. His work, originally written in Swedish, has been already twice translated into German, twice into French, once into Norwegian, and once into English. It deserves to be translated into every language of the globe. Such words from a throne find no parallel in history. All the productions from the eighteen royal authors of England, and the five of Scotland, mentioned in Walpole's Catalogue, could not confer the same true honor as these few pages. Not the "prettie versse" of Henry the Sixth; not the volume of Henry the Eighth, which has secured to his royal successors the unchangeable title of "Defender of the Faith"; not the "Counterblast to Tobacco," and other writings, teeming with pun, pedantry, vanity, Scripture, and prerogative, of James the First; not the ballads, songs, rondeaus, and poems of the four Jameses of Scotland. A work on "Punishments and Prisons" by a king, written in a spirit of simplicity and gentleness, with sympathy for the poor, the humble, the sinful, teaches us to appreciate forms of grandeur higher than any in the ordinary pursuits of royal ambition. Oscar is the son of Bernadotte, a marshal of the French Empire, and elected king of Sweden; but—pardon me while I speak what my heart feels—the author of this little book of humanity and wisdom inspires a warmer glow of admiration than the commander of the centre in the victory of Austerlitz, or of the timely succors that hurried the close of the giant struggle at Leipzig. He sits on a throne illustrated by two of the greatest sovereigns in modern Europe; but his is a truer glory than that of Gustavus Vasa in the mines of Dalecarlia, or of Gustavus Adolphus on the field of Lutzen.
In Holland, the penal code established in 1840, as the basis of prison discipline, separation by night and labor in common by day. "But they were not slow to recognize the insufficiency of this," says one of the eminent authorities. Wherefore the States General ordered the system of separate imprisonment, as practised at Philadelphia, with the modifications which excluded solitude, separating the prisoners from each other, and securing communication with good people. In the States General there was only one voice against this system. Again is our Report silent.
And lastly, at Geneva, in Switzerland, a plan of a prison on the Separate System was adopted in 1842. I have here the atlas containing a full representation of this prison in all its parts. But of this, too, our Report says nothing.