I. The Twentieth Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, transmitted to the Senate and House of Representatives. March 1849, pp. 36.

II. Report of the Board of Inspectors of the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, for the year 1848, with the accompanying documents. Pittsburg, 1849, pp. 21.

III. Report on the condition of the New Jersey State Prison, embracing the Reports of the Joint Committee, Inspectors, Keeper, Moral Instructor and Physician. Trenton, January 1849, pp. 44.

IV. Documents relating to the State Prison. Senate of Massachusetts, Document No. 5, pp. 24.

I. The first document in the above list is worthy of a much more extended notice than our limits allow us to give. We shall notice its constituent parts in their order.

(1.) In their report the inspectors refer with natural interest to the opening of the State Lunatic Asylum, which is expected to be completed as early as January 1851. For want of it, “instances have occurred in which the sheriff has been the medium of a message from the judge who pronounced the sentence, to the chief officer of the prison, informing him that the prisoner was insane, but that no other mode of providing for the case existed.”

The subject of pardons occupies a prominent place in their report. It appears that but a fraction over six per cent. of the pardoned have been recommitted; and the percentage of pardons in relation to number, sex and color, cannot be so well set forth in any other way as by transferring the table to our pages.

Table showing the whole number of pardons granted from the establishmentof the prison in 1829 to 9th July, 1848.
Year.Whole number in confinement.No. of pardons.Annul
average
per
centage.
Whites.Colored.Total,
both
colors.		Whites.Col’d.
M.F.Tot.M.F.Tot.M.F.Tot.M.F.Tot.
183175752542910411
183290902743112144
18331291294144517422
1834189189812832728811
18352618269155111664351010442.38
18362781128917919198487213
1837320832819919218546415
183833311344199222215651010
1839241624715016166413221.26
to Jan. 15th.
18393359344214302445889911
18403318339203312345731919
18412936299171322035021111211
18422985303153211744772020213
18433196325146161624871515
184433212344136171534973939437
184523010240971110834823124225.37
to Jan. 21.
1845305153201131612944955
1846321143351101612646124125
1847297930611313126432202055
1848245825397121033566174.08
to July 9th.

During the year 1848, there were received 121 convicts, viz., 88 whites (two females), and 33 colored (three females), and 128 were discharged. Of these, 83 served out their time; 13 were pardoned; 11 discharged by order of law; 15 died from disease, and one was a suicide. The whole number of convicts in confinement during the year was 415, viz., 299 white and 116 colored. Of the 16 deaths, 10 were whites and 6 colored.

(2.) The warden’s report shows that of the 121 convicts received, 32 were foreigners, and 56 were natives of Pennsylvania. Ninety-one were under middle age; 96 were of intemperate habits; 76 could read and write; 60 were unmarried. Only 14 were bound and served their time out; 13 were bound and broke their indentures; and 96 were never bound.

Some curious facts appear in the various summaries which these details embrace. For example, of the 2,421 prisoners received into the institution from its opening in October 1829, 619 could neither read nor write; 2,020 were addicted to the use of intoxicating drinks; 460, or more than one-sixth, were foreigners; and of these last, Ireland supplied 199 and Germany 112. Seventeen hundred and twenty-nine were first convictions; 1,451 were never married; and 18 had been married and separated; 1,631 were whites (48 females) and 790 colored (86 females); 467 broke their indentures, and 1,569 were never bound. Of the 2,421 crimes, 2,000 were against property.

(3.) Next in order is the physician’s report, in which special reference is made to the inordinate length of sentences, when the nature of the discipline is duly considered. Dr. Given thinks the coloured prisoners as a class, suffer a double burden, inasmuch as their sentences are longer and the enervating influence of imprisonment is more severely felt by them,—and he furnishes the following items on this subject.

Whole number of white prisoners,1631
Whole number of colored prisoners,790
Average length of sentences of white prisoners,2 y., 8 ms.,2days.
Average length of sentences of colored prisoners,3 y., 3 ms.,14days.
Whole number of pardons of white prisoners,253
Whole number of pardons of colored prisoners,25
Whole number of deaths of white prisoners,73
Whole number of deaths of colored prisoners,141