SUMMARY OF PRINCIPAL FACTS.
| Admitted during the year. | Discharged or died during the year. | Remaining at date of report. | Cured. | Deaths. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pennsylvania, | 215 | 203 | 200 | 120 | 17 |
| New Jersey,[5] | 86 | 3 | 83 | 3 | 0 |
| New York, | 405 | 382 | 495 | 174 | 86[6] |
| Massachusetts, | 261 | 246 | 409 | 136 | 30 |
Virginia.—The Eastern Insane Asylum of Virginia is established at Williamsburg, and the Western at Staunton. At the former were received in 1848, 34 patients, 15 males and 19 females. The number under care, October 1, 1848, was 165. Aggregate of inmates during the year 198; discharged 6 males and 10 females; deaths 17, (8 males and 9 females.) Spacious additions to the buildings are now in progress, a portion of which will be appropriated to colored patients. The receipts of the year were $41,350 64, and the expenditures $29,716 89.
At the latter institution were received during the year ending October 1, 1848, 70, (39 males and 31 females,) making an aggregate of 277 under care during the year. There were discharged in the same time 50 patients, of whom 40 were recovered, (21 males and 19 females,) and 7 more or less improved; 2 were unimproved, 1 eloped, and 22 died.
Among the causes assigned for insanity, we notice hard study is given in the case of 11 males and 1 female, intemperance 16 males, and domestic affliction 6 males and 18 females. Seven thousand dollars have been expended lately in new buildings.
No. 2.—The precise present character of transportation explained, with suggestions by Ignotus.
We observe in our English papers a brief notice of a pamphlet of fifty pages, published in London a short time since, advocating some important modifications of the transportation system. As we regard the system itself too near extinction to render any modifications of it particularly valuable or interesting, we notice the publication only for the sake of what the author says about convict-separation. We take, by piece-meal, the whole extract of the English reviewer, venturing a brief comment on some passages.
“This sort of confinement (separation) has, of late years, been extravagantly commended by some, and as loudly reprobated by others. The truth seems to lie between the two extreme opinions. (A position which truth has long been supposed to occupy.) We are led, by our own observations, to value it but little as an active agency for reforming criminals, but to allow it a high place as auxiliary, in general, to that which is reformatory in the highest degree, Christian instruction in the hands of Christian men.”
We are not aware of any system of prison discipline that possesses or pretends to possess an “active agency for reforming criminals,” independent of Christian instruction. We imprison men to punish them, and we think the “active agency” of punishment is quickened by separation. And hence we hold, that apart from reformatory influences, separation during imprisonment is preferable to association, considered merely as a punishment. When, however, we introduce the agency which is “reformatory in the highest degree,” (to wit, “Christian instruction in the hands of Christian men,”) the comparative fitness of the two modes of imprisonment to receive and employ it, is at once revealed, and, as “Ignotus” says, the separation of the convicts is then seen to occupy a high place as an auxiliary to its influence.