But what shall we say to the other ground of apology for allowing tobacco to the prisoners, viz., for the cure of “dyspepsia and mental depressions, otherwise treated in vain?” In such a war, we must put Greek against Greek. In insane asylums, where physical and mental diseases are supposed to have the most skilful medical treatment, we are informed that the use of tobacco is strictly interdicted by the resident physician; and we notice by the return of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, that six of the cases of insanity received into that institution last year, are believed to have originated in the use of that narcotic! Nothing could show the prodigious power of the habit more strikingly than the remark of Dr. G., that “the fear of being deprived of it has produced a degree of order and discipline throughout the establishment, that the severest punishment could not effect.” We have seen, in a nursery of young rogues, a violent uproar against a parent or care-taker quieted at once by just giving a sugar plum, or a bit of gingerbread, which had been at first denied. How far such concessions to the vicious appetite of convicts, or to the unruly will of children promote sound discipline, is not a matter of doubt to observing minds. A firm maintenance of wholesome authority, or the discreet use of King Solomon’s specific for disorders of the temper, would perhaps add a new strain to the discordant music for the time being, but it would be likely to produce very agreeable harmony in the end.
The striking improvements which have been made in the hygienic arrangement of the Eastern State Penitentiary, and for which it is greatly indebted to the earnest and well directed efforts of Dr. G., cannot fail to impress every reader of the report. Without relaxing in any degree the radical principle of separation, or rendering the penal feature of the discipline any less severe, the moral and physical well being of the convicts has been greatly advanced, and the claims of the worst of them to kind and humane treatment have been recognised with a distinctness of which they are, for the most part, happily conscious. If we would give to an inquirer on the subject a succinct but impressive view of the advance which has been made in the improvement of our system of prison-discipline, we know of no document to which we would refer with more confidence than this report of Dr. Given.
Art. III.—JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, TRUANCY, &c.
In our last number, we commenced a notice of several interesting matters occurring in Boston and its vicinity, and falling within the range of our observation. The presentment of the Grand Jury of Suffolk County was under discussion, and we promised to return to it again when opportunity should allow, and this promise we now redeem.
The establishment of “an intermediate reform school for young persons, who are committed for first offences, when there is an apparent opportunity for their reformation by the use of moral and intellectual discipline,” is strongly urged in the presentment. The Grand Jury have in view a plan, “where the mark of the penitentiary shall not be put upon the convicts, but where, by judicious management on the part of superintendent, and exemplary conduct on the part of those consigned to his charge—they whose misfortune it may be to stray from the paths of rectitude, could again be received into the bosom of society without reproach.”
To enforce their suggestions, they call into view “the large number of minors that have been brought before the tribunals of public justice within the six months last past,” and express their deep conviction that “if some plan were provided, at which neglected children could be made to pass their time, instead of upon the wharves, in the streets, around the doors of theatres, or in the market places,—say in some industrial school provided by the State,—juvenile delinquency would very much decrease.”
These are all very good notions for a Boston jury, or any other jury to entertain, but suppose we should transform all these jurymen into Legislators, and give them a seat in the House of Representatives; and suppose a proposition were submitted to enact a law, making it compulsory on all parents to give their children a certain amount of schooling every year, and in default thereof, authorizing and requiring the proper authorities to remove such children from the custody of the parents, for the purpose of schooling them. Would they then and there take the same view of the subject? Would no misgivings arise about the bearing which their advocacy of such a stringent law might have on their political prospects? Would they advance as directly and as boldly to the application of the remedy as they do to the exposure of the evil?
It is obvious from the language of the report, that the Suffolk Grand Jury have a much clearer idea of the disease than they have of the cure. The class of persons to whom they refer as “committed for first offences” are nevertheless “convicts,” and nothing can remove the “mark of the penitentiary” but an executive pardon. And whether there is “an apparent opportunity for their reformation,” is not an easy question to determine. When the distinction comes to be practically applied, it would be found very perplexing. Our Houses of Refuge are intended to receive those who have entered, or are just entering upon a course of life, which ordinarily ends in the penitentiary; and they have doubtless saved scores of youth from the convict’s infamous doom, and returned them to their families and to society, with every prospect of usefulness and respectability. And we had supposed that the State Reform School at Westborough, which has been so successfully conducted, was designed to answer exactly this end. The boys who are committed there, are generally sent for first offences, and the discipline is strictly reformatory. Does the report of the jury then contemplate an institution between the Reform School and the State Penitentiary, or between the Reform School and “the House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders,” at South Boston? If the former, what ends are expected to be answered, which the institution at Westborough fails to accomplish; and if the latter, what class of offenders would they find between those at Westborough and those at South Boston, for whose case neither of these establishments provides?
However obscure the intimations of the report may be on this point, they are very clear on another, viz., that juvenile delinquency would be greatly diminished if all idle, loitering, loafing children “about town” were put to good, industrial schools. It is not a whit more certain, that if the Cochituate pond were to dry up suddenly, Boston would have a far less generous supply of water than it has now. But how shall this abstraction from the streets and wharves, of the filthy, foul-mouthed, ragged urchins be brought about? When and where shall the industrial school be established? What shall be the nature of the discipline, and the length of the confinement? Shall the public support them, or shall contributions be levied on negligent parents? Such schools have been greatly prospered, we know, in some of the chief towns of England and Scotland; but the institutions of society and indeed its whole structure, will allow that to be done there, which would not be tolerated here. We must give our Boston friends credit, however, for a very wise and effective step towards the suppression of juvenile vice. We allude to the law for the correction of truancy, and we cannot more usefully occupy a page of our limited space than by transcribing one or two passages from a leading document on the subject. The views expressed are quite as appropriate to Philadelphia as to Boston.