Before closing this part of the Report, it is deemed proper, if not indeed a duty, to refer again, and with stronger emphasis, to the evil “associations” of young persons of our city, their immoral combinations, and the evils to which these societies give rise. Lads whose parents are laboring hard all day to procure a scanty support, find themselves without the restraint of domestic authority, and they use their freedom to procure the gratification of wishes which have been formed without domestic discipline or moral restraints. In many of these cases the parents are little better than the children, and the example of intemperance and ill temper at home is easily followed abroad. In some cases the parents, though virtuous, lack the mental ability to correct the evils of bad association in their children, and the foolish son, without any criminal intent or neglect on the part of the parents, becomes a grief to his father and bitterness to her that bore him. There is scarcely to be found a more effective school for vice at first and crime in succession, than is furnished by one of the clubs of lads with which parts of our city are infested,—infested as much now, though not as obtrusively, as when “nights were made hideous” by the uproar of their juvenile members, and the “day deformed” by the inscription of their titles and deeds upon the fences and house-fronts in the vicinity of their operations. He who would alleviate the miseries of prisons by lessening the number of prisoners, may find object of labor among these most injurious societies.
He who would stay the progress of vice and crime in that direction, must deal first with those parents whose vices or whose negligence of parental duties supply members for the clubs, and candidates for the penitentiary. Parental indifference, total disregard to all the obligations of domestic life, is the cause of such a deterioration in the young of the city,—the young we mean of both sexes; for neglect at home operates as injuriously upon girls as upon boys; and the evidence of the equality of the evil is as conspicuous in the bad associations of the young female as in her miserable brother, and the result may perhaps be far more lamentable to the former, because of the almost impossibility of reclaiming her. If the clubs and associations absorb the boys and prepare them for a guilty manhood, public “parties,” coarse exhibitions, and service at the drinking saloon, at dancing halls and casinos, qualify the girl for the lowest grade of vice. The two sexes have different paths downward to destruction, but in this world those pathways usually terminate in the prison; and the cells at Moyamensing have more than once, and at one time, contained father, and mother, with their sons and daughters,—terrible illustration of the evils of home vices, and the neglect of parental duties, the forbearance of domestic restraints.
It is not intended to assert that all the vice and errors of children are referable to parental example: that would be a gross injustice to those sorrowing ones who see the stray one from their domestic circle, disgracing in his vicious career the lessons and examples of piety in which he was reared, and forming a marked exception to the character and condition of his relatives. But we have a right to speak plainly where the evidences of neglect and even of bad example in the parents are manifest in the error of the child. We have a right; nay, in the position which this association is now occupying, we have a duty to society, to urge attention to the evils which our community is made to suffer from a neglect of domestic discipline, which crowds the cells of our prison with guilty parents, and fills the House of Refuge with their erring children.
We repeat it, that we distinguish between those cases of parental sorrow which flow from some exceptional cause, and those domestic miseries which are consequent upon vice or criminal neglect; but care must be taken not to weaken a sense of parental responsibility by referring to misfortune, too much that may be referable to vicious error. In this matter, as in others of a different character, perhaps the language of the poet may be painfully applicable:
“Look into those you call unfortunate,
And, closer viewed, you’ll find they are unwise.”
STATISTIC.
While on the subject of the County Prison, it may not be amiss to present a few statistics regarding the number of those who have been its inmates during the year 1863. The whole number of commitments was 17,219. The philanthropist who looks at the effect of vice or misfortune on individuals, will be startled at such a statement, when he considers how much private misery and domestic grief there were involved in all these incarcerations; not only in the separation of so many persons from their social and domestic associations, but more than that, often the long career of annoyance to family and friend, from the regular advance in crime and vice which led to the incarceration. One other fact is noticeable, the increase in imprisonment in 1863 over those in 1862 was 2,573. That, it is evident to those who visit the prison and examine into the cause of such painful effects, is, in part, one of the bitter fruits of the present war. And the mortifying fact, that 794 of the increase of committed were females, is evidently referable to the same cause. In 1861 and a part of 1862, the number of commitments of males was greatly decreased, as the army was absorbing with better elements, many of those who were almost monthly successful candidates for the prison, while at the same time, the number of females increased, owing to the absence of those to whom they were responsible, and to the periodical reception of money in larger amounts than they had been accustomed to receive. The return of whole regiments to our city, serves, by supplying only a few vicious from each, to bring up the number of males without diminishing those of females committed. Yet we must not overlook the fact, that a large portion of those extra commitments are of persons who contrive to make their appearance at the prison in about ten days after having served thirty days in the cells. They are new commitments, but they are old offenders; and they furnish one strong argument, or rather, perhaps, show the necessity for a House of Correction.