The Separate System is strictly enforced, except that no labor is introduced, the prison being chiefly a house of detention for debtors, witnesses and untried prisoners, upon whom labor or other prison service may not be enforced. Thirty or forty convicts were there, but under sentences so short as to render it unprofitable to put them to work. Many were committed for non-payment of fine and costs. The debtors have a separate ward, as have also females and minors. Among the most obvious and important deficiencies may be mentioned that of water. Tubs and cans are used in the cells. The rates allowed for the board of witnesses are liberal, and an instance was mentioned to us of a case so unimportant that the defendant was bailed in the sum of only $30, while several witnesses were then in confinement at the rate of $2.25 per week for their board!
Whoever forms a judgment of the new gaol for Suffolk County from the description in the Report of the Committee, will find much cause to modify it upon a view of the premises; and if we were not misinformed by resident officials, the structure fails, in some very important particulars, to answer the purpose which its projectors had in view. Some attribute its defects to the unsteady counsels that presided over its erection, and others to radical errors in the plan. As it has great advantages over the old gaol, however, we are disposed to consider it a step in advance, though certainly a very costly one.
Miscellaneous Notices.
FOREIGN.
CRIME AND PAUPERISM COUNTERACTED.
“It is a trite argument now, that the reformation of one child, while it is far more hopeful than the reclamation of one old offender, is many degrees cheaper than the punishment of that one. Experience proves that there is scarcely a single case out of a thousand where the incipient disease of vice has not yielded to the ameliorating treatment of kindness, and the removal of the cause—poverty. Cheaper; because directly diminishing pauperism, it, in the first place, reduces the amount we, as a community, pay for its support; cheaper, because trying, catching and punishing one criminal, costs, in some cases, an amount equal to the whole annual expense to feed, clothe, and instruct a school-full of those who are to be prevented, by a simple process, from becoming criminals; and cheaper, in this far higher sense, that the reformation of one individual infinitely more than counterbalances the expense of attempts, even where ineffectual, at reforming many.”
Let the doubter of these positions call at some school where the lowest order of human kind finds shelter, food and friends. We have seen such an one—in the old country. We will introduce our readers to one of its pupils:
He enters through a play-yard, where half a dozen little fellows, not very fashionable, though quite decent in their attire, are amusing themselves with tops and balls, and, if noise is a test of comfort, they are very happy. Ascending an outside stair, he turns into a somewhat spacious apartment. The roof indeed is not lathed and plastered, but there is all the more ventilation. Everywhere, although things are homely enough, there is an air of perfect cleanliness. Two or three excellent maps hang across and divide the apartment, in one end of which are the boys, in the other the girls. Let him look at either class, and what a strange study for the physiognomist or phrenologist are the faces and foreheads of the pupils. Some have countenances on which the traces of very early hard life are still visible; the lines of misery are scarcely yet effaced. There are others, free, good brows, which give unmistakeable evidence of shrewdness and talent; but on every face there is contentment. The teachers in both divisions are busy at the usual lessons; but, at the stranger’s visit, the classes are united, and an exercise is gone through by individuals of either sex, chosen promiscuously. In the back seat there starts up a little fellow about twelve years and a half, who, caught half-naked, begging through the streets some fifteen months ago, can read his Bible like the best of us; another reads a verse or two of poetry; a third small youth, whose only occupation, till within a year or so, was selling matches through the streets, is proved, after trial, to be far the best speller in the place, where there are not a few very good ones, and so on. The procedure is as orderly, and the advancement in secular and Christian knowledge, of these once outcast and forsaken children—now clothed and in their right mind—is as great as in any of the best public schools; and seems to have been at least as rapid as among the children of what are called the respectable classes of society. And now a hymn is sung by all united, and, as they sit and sing, with folded arms and serious looks, there is enough, whether in the whole scene, or in the music so touchingly chanted, to send something like a tear into the corner of the eye. This over, the ranks are marshalled, and then pass down to the room below, where dinner waits; and, standing silently over the homely but substantial fare, a sign is made, when every eye is closed, and grace is said aloud. Enjoying themselves over their humble meal, our visitor leaves them, and heartily joins us in recommending a visit to such a scene, and inviting public attention to the principles on which these poor children are made what they are. The leading and moving principle is that of kindness and love—the endeavouring by all means to win them back to trust and confidence in the kindness and love of teachers and friends; and looking at the interests at stake, surely we may say that these are endeavours which a Christian public is bound to second, especially when the seconding costs so little, and is attended, as we have seen, with so great results.
If any of the readers of our Journal would see this same wise and humane policy exhibited in actual life, let him visit the Foster Home, (at what is known as the Preston Retreat,) or the Children’s Home in Moyamensing, and he will see how much seasonable care and kindness will do, towards counteracting the downward tendencies of poverty and social corruption. The following stanzas happily express the grand idea of social reformation.