The average period of confinement in Connecticut is six years, seven months, twenty-nine days; and in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania it is only two years, six months and three days.
New York State Prisons.—
The report of the State Penitentiaries of New York bear date December 1, and show that 129 more convicts were in custody at that time than in December, 1851. Of 1843, the whole number in confinement, 924 were at Sing Sing, 752 at Auburn and 167 at Clinton. One hundred and forty-three pardons were granted, or about 1 in every 12 convictions! The expenses of all the prisons exceeded the earnings by several thousands of dollars, showing the fallacy of the argument so potent with most Legislatures, that by associating prisoners in labor they become a source of profit, while separating them involves great expense. The Clinton prison is going largely into the iron business and wants more hands. We would respectfully suggest, whether there are not many persons at large in New York, and some quite considerable in importance and respectable in appearance, too, who would find appropriate employment there.
There has been some increase in the frequency of punishments by the yoke, the shower bath, the ball and chain, and solitude.
Of 613 commitments, two-thirds confessed intemperate habits. How many of the rest were moderate drinkers does not appear. The average degree of education in the convicts received is less than in some former reports.
Idiots in New York.—There are two thousand eight hundred idiots in the State of New York. The report of the superintendent of the Idiot Asylum, near Albany, contains the following interesting passage:—“We have taught a child to walk when we had first to awaken or cultivate a fear of falling, as an incentive to any efforts on her part. We have awakened perceptions of sounds in ears where the sense of hearing resided without the use of it. We have developed perceptions of sight through eyes that had never performed their appropriate office. We have been teaching children to speak in every stage of articulation. Cases that three years since only promised to be hopeless, helpless burdens to their friends all their lives, have been elevated to the rank of happy, useful members of society. In almost all cases, and with very few, if any exceptions, those usually called idiots, under the age of twelve or fifteen, may be so trained and instructed as to render them useful to themselves, and fitted to learn some of the ordinary trades, or to engage in agriculture. Their minds and souls can be developed, so that they may become responsible beings, acquainted with their relations to their Creator and a future state, and their obligations to obey the laws and respect the rights of their fellow-citizens. In all cases, we believe, for we have seen what has been accomplished in apparently desperate cases, they can be made cleanly and neat in their personal habits, and enabled to enjoy the bounties of Providence and the Comforts of life, and to cease being incumbrances and annoyances to the families in which they reside.”
Be beforehand with the Tempter!—
A friend tells us of a case in which a young girl of considerable personal attraction, was rescued from impending danger. Her mother was a widow with very scanty means of support. This girl had a taste for, and some skill in music. Had been at the public schools, and could read and write with facility, and was indeed respectably educated for one in her station. Her mother had determined to take boarders, and to give an air of gentility to her house, she had also made arrangements to hire a piano. The introduction of the class of boarders which the mother expected, would have exposed the child to great danger. A Christian friend saw this, and by timely and judicious efforts succeeded in securing for her a situation where she would be protected and prepared for usefulness, and for gaining a respectable livelihood.
How much more hopeful such simple preventive measures are, than those which (though equally well meant) come later, and are at best but remedial in their character.