It would seem, according to his views, that the design of imprisoning is, to bring back to society those once injurious, but who are now changed to good citizens.
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of Massachusetts, advocated the merciful and kindly treatment as being the way to make a permanent impression upon the criminal classes.
M. Robin, of France, stated that his experience led him to set his face against all pains and penalties in prison, as against Christian principles, and advocated the teaching of trades. All in all, strict adherence to Christian principles should be at the bottom of the treatment of criminals.
Count de Foresta, of Italy, held that the question was rather one of law than prison discipline. He urged that there was a line of prison discipline beyond which it was impossible to go without turning the discipline into cruelty.
Another question touching "Prison Labor," was brought forward and considered, as follows:
Question: "Should prison labor be merely penal, or should it be industrial?"
It was opened by the reading of a long and interesting paper by Mr. Frederick Hill, brother of the late celebrated Recorder of Birmingham. The substance of the paper was that labor, to be made useful and productive, follows natural laws, which are the same in prison as out of prison; that it is an advantage to the prisoner to fit him for usefulness and to make more easy his reform; that it will help pay the cost of his conviction and imprisonment; that upon release, he will be better armed against relapse into crime, as well as much better prepared to obtain an honest living than those whose labor has been merely penal; that the pains and privations necessarily attendant on the process of moral reformation are so great as to make it unnecessary, for the maintenance of the principle of deterrence, to superadd artificial pains and penalties.
Colonel Colville, Governor of Colbath Fields Prison, one of the largest London prisons, spoke very strongly against the tread-mill system of punishment which is in nearly all the prisons of England, and almost unanimously condemned by the prison officials.
The general opinion of the Congress was in conformity to views expressed by the speakers mentioned.
Under the question touching the moral value of visitation of the prisons by women, we find the following sensible views expressed: