| East. State Peni. | West. State Peni. | |
|---|---|---|
| 23 years. | 26 years. | |
| Of the whole number received, there were disch’d by expira’n of sentence, | 2005 | 1061 |
| Pardoned, | 422 | 305 |
| Deaths, | 230 | 81 |
| Removed, | 31 | 4 |
| Escaped, | 1 | 10 |
| Remaining December 31, | 283 | 187 |
| ----- | ----- | |
| Total, | 2972 | 1648 |
A very slight examination of this statement reveals some singular differences, especially in the items of pardons and deaths, which an analysis of the annual returns would doubtless satisfactorily explain.
The moral instructor in the Eastern State Penitentiary adverts to the circumstance that only nineteen of the one hundred and twenty-six commitments were over thirty-five years of age, and that twenty-eight were under twenty. He very justly regards the ignorant, vicious and depraved youth of the land as the reservoir of convicts. The moral instructor of the Western State Penitentiary says, “there is a larger proportion of mere youths in the prison than at any former time. More than three-fourths of the prisoners confined within these walls have confessed to me that their early youth was passed almost entirely without moral teachings. The records of our Courts bear ample testimony to the fearful and distressing increase of crime among our youth. There are in this prison, received within the past year, nineteen convicts not over twenty-one years of age!”
These considerations show the seasonableness and importance of a proposition from the Managers of our House of Refuge, which will be found on our last page.
A large section of the report of the inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary is occupied by a discussion of the provisions of the Act of Assembly of May 4, 1852, and the proceedings under it, to which we shall make more particular reference in a separate article.
Art. V.—SHOULD CONVICTS BE RECEIVED INTO THE STATE LUNATIC HOSPITAL AT HARRISBURG?
The General Appropriation Act of 1852, provides $25,000 to complete the unfinished range of cells of the Western State Penitentiary, and for the payment of gratuities to convicts discharged from the two penitentiaries, $1417, viz.: $667 to the Eastern, and the remainder ($750) to the Western. Then follows §42. “That the further sum of ten thousand dollars be and the same is hereby appropriated to the Eastern State Penitentiary, for the purpose of grading, curbing and paving the street adjoining, preserving the buildings from decay, and altering and repairing a part of them for the suitable accommodation of prisoners whose mental or physical condition requires, in the opinion of the inspectors, a temporary relaxation of the separate confinement system. Provided, That whenever in the opinion of the inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary, any of the prisoners therein confined shall develope such marked insanity as to render their continued confinement in said Penitentiary improper, and their removal to the State Lunatic Hospital necessary to their restoration, it shall be the duty of the said Inspectors to submit such cases to a Board, composed of the District Attorney of the County of Philadelphia, the principal physician of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at Philadelphia, and the principal physician of the Friends’ Insane Asylum at Frankford in Philadelphia County; and in case a majority of them cannot, at any time when required, attend, a competent physician or physicians, to be appointed by the Court of Quarter Sessions of the County of Philadelphia, in the place of such as cannot attend, upon whose certificate of insanity, or the certificate of any two of them transmitted to the Governor, and if by him approved, he shall direct that said insane prisoner shall be by said Inspectors removed to the State Lunatic Hospital, there to be received, safely kept and properly provided for, at the cost and charge of the county, from which they were sent to the Penitentiary, and if at any time during the period for which any such insane prisoners shall have been sentenced to confinement in the Eastern Penitentiary, they shall, in the opinion of the trustees of said Lunatic Hospital, be so far restored as to render their return to said Penitentiary safe and proper, then the said trustees shall cause the said prisoner to be returned to said Eastern Penitentiary, due notice being given to the clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the County, from which such prisoners were sent to the Penitentiary, of all such removals or transfers.”
In pursuance of the authority enforced by this law, the commissioners met at the Penitentiary on the 20th of October last, and at various times thereafter, and examined eighteen cases presented for their investigation—eight of whom they regard as proper subjects of hospital treatment; two, they think, will be as well or better off where they are; the sentence of one expired during the pendency of the proceedings, and he was discharged, four are not suitable inmates of an Insane Hospital, and three, who were committed for safe keeping, are regarded on all hands as unfit to be placed in any hospital, or elsewhere where the means of close custody are less efficient than in the Eastern State Penitentiary.