The wife of a very respectable citizen of Philadelphia contracted a habit of intemperate drinking. So resistless was the habit, that she was accustomed to pawn any thing that could be removed through the doors or windows to obtain the means of indulgence. No proper receptacle for such persons being provided, there was no alternative but that most painful one of a commitment to a prison-cell. It was hoped that a brief separation from all opportunity to gratify her appetite, would work a cure, especially when connected with the severity of the discipline.
She was committed by due process of law to the county prison, and during the brief period of her restraint, she was associated at various times with at least three vile malefactors, one of whom was under indictment for murder. When she left the prison and returned home, instead of being the sober, useful, reformed woman, that her wretched husband expected, she had become familiar with the worst forms and most notorious haunts of wickedness and infamy. She was not only still intemperate, but far more degraded and hopeless in her condition than ever before.
A girl at service, in a respectable family, committed some trifling fault which irritated her employers, and induced them to commence a prosecution against her for larceny. She was charged with stealing a flannel jacket and a bonnet-ribbon.
On the trial it was proved that the former consisted of at least thirty distinct pieces of cloth which she had sewed together, supposing the fragments to be of no value. The ribbon she had taken from an old bonnet, which had lain among the rubbish of a loft for two years or more. She was found guilty, received sentence, and was committed in execution of it to the county prison. Here she became the associate of two, if not three different individuals, each of whom had been steeped in crime, and though she went into prison technically guilty, but in all good truth and justice guiltless, she came out a thorough bred mistress of iniquity!
A committing magistrate states a case which fell within his own knowledge, in which a thief and the receiver of the stolen property were tenants of the same cell! And another case is mentioned, in which a youth was associated with an old rogue, who gave him daily lessons in the various branches of criminal science!
It will be perceived, that we impute no blame to any one for the state of things here revealed. It is well known, that within a year or two last past, persons have been detained in confinement in our county prison for weeks, and even months, without any employment for mind or body, and in some instances without a change of apparel! And it was a remark of one of our judges made in a public assembly lately, that “the condition of the county prison at that time was a fair sample of what the worst prison in London was, when Howard began his reforming efforts!”
We suppose this deplorable state of things is the consequence of inadequate provision for the number and class of prisoners, whom the officers are obliged to receive. We therefore go with our appeal to the people, as represented in the legislative assembly, and earnestly invoke their attention to the subject. It cannot be needful to spread out in any new form the evils which are inevitably consequent on the association of prisoners of any class or character, tried or untried, with each other.
If it is fancied that the opportunities of mutual corruption are less eagerly seized now, than they were in former years, or that association may be allowed with less hazard, we can give the most unqualified assurance that such fancies are vain. The evidence of the certainty of contamination from contact, was never more conclusive than now. We have this moment before us an official report of the thievish adventures of a couple of boys, who were confined together in Cold-bath-Fields prison, which serves not only to show the folly of giving such facilities for planning mischief, but an extraordinary boldness and success in its perpetration.
Having settled during the leisure moments of their imprisonment, the scheme of a professional trip to Kidderminster, “as soon as they were released they built a dog-cart, stole two dogs, and bought some hardware to vend. Whilst they were buying it in the shop, their comrades stole a dozen and a-half of brooms from the door, for which the boys paid them half-a-crown. They took with them also twenty sixpences and ten shillings in bad money, which they carried under the false floor of the cart. They first stopped at Wimbledon, where they paid a bad sixpence for some beer, and stole four silver salt-spoons from a shelf, which they disposed of to the landlord of the house in which they slept, at Kingston, for their lodging and five shillings. On the next day a coach passed them, from which one of the boys cut down a portmanteau, which turned out to be filled with papers. One of them manufactured cloth caps, and stole a great coat from a customer to supply him with materials. When they arrived at Kidderminster, they visited a carpet factory in which one of them formerly had employment, from which they stole at various times large quantities of twine and string. They were always punctual at church, where they regularly took occasion to commit thefts. In one town they succeeded in stealing three watches. At a neighboring fair one of them obtained eight purses from as many farmers, but having fallen under suspicion received a handsome ducking in a pond. On their return to London they entered a vacant house and took away a pair of decanters, a hearth-rug, and a great coat, which realised 25s.; and, after picking the pockets of some soldiers of 2l., and stealing a watch and some silver salt-cellars, they reached London without detection, where the silver fetched 3s. 6d. an ounce, and the watches no less than 15l.”
A narrower policy can scarcely be conceived, than that which withholds the means of preventing crime, or counteracting the influences that provoke or promote it. We can make a very close estimate of the expense of keeping two practised rogues in separate places for a couple of years, but what it will cost to allow them to associate, is more than human wit can divine!