Mr. Lynds, the superintendent of the Prison at Sing Sing, speaks of the character required in this situation as peculiar: viz. equanimity, quick discernment of character, impartiality, resolution, vigilance, promptitude, besides honesty and temperance, and, more than all, a habit of seeing much and saying little. He has not been without his difficulties in getting the right men. He mentions a case, in which an assistant keeper at Auburn was detected in employing convicts to steal for him.
Roberts Vaux, of Philadelphia, in a pamphlet entitled 'Original and successive Efforts to improve the Condition of Prisons,' &c., mentions, that, in the Prison in Philadelphia, many years since, 'the keeper had been a long time connected with criminals, under circumstances which caused him to be suspected of a more intimate knowledge of the depredations committed in the city, than comported with that unblemished reputation which ought to belong to such an officer.'
In the Baltimore Penitentiary, an officer was understood to say, that two assistant keepers had been discharged for circulating counterfeit money for convicts."
There is another part of the discipline recommended by this Society, of which I cordially approve; it is that which relates to religious instruction. May God bless all their labours to give this part of their discipline a permanent residence in every prison on earth! I expect the time when prisons will be purified from sin—I expect a time when they will be no longer needed—and I expect this through the universal and perfect diffusion of the principles of the gospel. "When in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." The means of grace, then, are the only means of reformation. The means of cruelty can effect no good in any heart. The gospel, the gospel; this is the power of God unto salvation, and this alone can effect a salutary change in the soul.
I hold to punishment, but it is the punishment of mercy. Let the sinner endure the consequences of his crime, but let goodness inflict the rod. Let his punishment be severe, if necessary, but never capricious; let its object be the good of the sufferer, not vengeance; and when he is penitent, let the punishment cease.
But the reformation of prisoners is only a small fraction in the reformations which are called for. The whole world needs reforming; and the reformation of prisoners will keep pace only with the reformation of those who are free; and as long as these places must be under the control of corrupt and depraved minds, alas for the cause of reform! Some of the iniquity of prison keepers has been discovered by the public eye, but what has been seen by that eye, is only a drop to a fountain, compared with the whole.—Enough is known about the guilt of prisoners, because the keepers who make the report are believed; but the keepers have no observers of their conduct but prisoners, and these are not credited when they tell the truth. It is believed in general, that prison keepers are tyrants. The voice of every age and country unites in describing this class of men as coming the nearest of any in moral resemblance to Satan; and yet no prisoner is believed when he complains of abuse. Let some great Howard go through the prisons in the United States, and take his accounts from prisoners as well as keepers, and he will give a different Report from the one before me. There is as much need of a society to reform keepers, as there ever can be to reform prisoners; and there can be but little ground to hope for success in prison till the keepers become not merely honest men but pious christians.
My statements in respect to the destruction of the chapel and the neglect of the means of grace in the Windsor Prison, are confirmed by the Reports of this Society. In the FIRST REPORT, pages 32, 33, the Society say, that, "In the Vermont Penitentiary, one hundred dollars only are appropriated for religious instruction. The chapel has been converted into a weaver's shop. The services on the Sabbath are irregular, and the Scriptures are not daily read to the assembled convicts."—Second report, page 56, "The duties of Chaplain are very irregularly discharged. In truth there is no stated Chaplain whose services can be relied on."
One quotation more on this subject is all that I can now make. It is from the SEVENTH REPORT, page 10. "The legislature of Vermont, at the last session, provided by law an additional compensation for a Chaplain; so that the state now pays three hundred dollars per annum for this service, and a chaplain has been appointed to discharge the duties of the office."
Will the Secretary of this Society be so good as to inform the public in his next Report, how much service the Chaplain in the Vermont Penitentiary renders for his salary of three hundred dollars?
My time does not permit me to copy any more from the Reports of this Society. In the remarks that I have made upon its doings, I have had no design to impugn its motives. I doubt not that the managers of the Society mean to do good. I impeach not their views, but I doubt the wisdom of their policy. I know what they never can; and I am only opposing facts and experience to a fair but deceptive theory. The hope of effecting a reformation among prisoners, by stripes and solitary cells, can never be realized. It will be of no use for me to reason on this subject, for I am too small to be noticed. Nothing that I can say will tell on the great minds which compose the Society whose doings I condemn. But I must be allowed to give my opinion. "The Prison Discipline Society" is combining the talent of the country, and the wealth of the country, for a purpose which appears to itself benevolent, but which will, past all doubt, result in sinking our prisons to the lowest point of cruelty, and the darkest region of despair; and from his knowledge of human character and the effect of cruelty on the heart, I should suppose that Lucifer would be its most efficient patron.