Yet stay a moment. The sympathy of a disciple and minister of Christ—“that friend of publicans and sinners”—is awakened for them. He calls upon the keeper, and proposes to address the prisoners occasionally, in a religious discourse, and to begin on the following Lord’s day. The keeper is amazed at so preposterous a proposition, and expresses his conviction that the attempt would be extremely hazardous, involving not only peril to the preacher himself and to the officers in attendance, but the possible escape of the prisoners, and the consequent pillage and murder of the citizens! Whether this was the result of timidity, or of a design to obstruct all efforts at reformation, is not known; but these and all other scruples were so far overcome, that permission was given to make the trial.
“At the appointed time the clergyman[1] repaired to the prison, and was received with a reserve bordering on incivility. The keeper reluctantly admitted him through the iron gate to a platform at the top of the steps leading to the yard, where a loaded cannon was placed, and a man beside it with a lighted match! The motley concourse of prisoners were arranged in a solid column extending to the greatest distance which the hall could allow, and in front of the instrument prepared for their destruction in the event of the least commotion.”
[1] Rev. William Rogers, D. D.
This was literally preaching at the cannon’s mouth. The service was attended, however, with entire decorum throughout, many of the prisoners giving respectful attention, and all of them behaving with unexpected propriety. This was as late as 1786-7. Who of our readers has ever attended the religious service on the Lord’s day at the Eastern State Penitentiary, without being impressed with the propriety—we might almost say, the solemnity of the occasion. Each prisoner, separated from his fellows, is able to give undiverted attention to the word spoken, and in the seclusion of his own apartment, with the written Scriptures in his hand, may “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the truth that is able to make him wise unto salvation. He joins in the supplication that ascends to the throne of the heavenly grace, and in the hymns of praise and thanksgiving for the many mercies that are mingled in his cup of suffering; and who will say that this is not a marvellous spectacle to the eye of one who witnessed the delivery of Dr. Rogers’ first sermon in the prison yard!
But another scene opens. Groups of men are laboring in the streets of the city, cleaning and repairing them. Their heads are shaven, and they wear parti-colored clothing, and of course attract the gaze of passers-by. These are prisoners! Goaded to desperation by the taunts and jibes of idle and vicious boys, they have sometimes attempted to revenge their injuries, and to prevent this, they are loaded with iron collars on their necks, and cannon balls or bomb shells “are fastened to their feet by chains to be dragged after them, while they pursue their degrading labor under the eye of keepers armed with swords, blunderbusses, and other weapons of destruction.”
It was such a revolting sight as this that prompted our Prison Society to call for a radical reformation—not only for the withdrawal of these wretched men from the public gaze, injurious alike to the public and to themselves, but for their withdrawal from each other’s presence too, intimating very clearly their conviction that “MORE PRIVATE OR EVEN SOLITARY OR SECLUDED LABOR WOULD MORE SUCCESSFULLY TEND TO RECLAIM THE UNHAPPY OBJECTS, AS IT MIGHT BE CONDUCTED MORE STEADILY AND UNIFORMLY, AND THE KIND AND PORTION OF LABOR BETTER ADAPTED TO THE DIFFERENT ABILITIES OF THE CRIMINALS.”
We have put this memorable language in conspicuous letters, as we find in it the germ of all philosophical and truly philanthropic schemes for improvement of prison discipline, which have been devised in the sixty years’ interval.
It was an intimation more broadly given in about a twelve-month after, when fifteen of our most distinguished and benevolent citizens, then in active life, with the venerable Bishop White at their head, “thought it their duty to declare, as a matter of the utmost moment to the well being, safety and peace of society, as well as of the greatest importance to the criminals, that from a long and steady attention to the real practical state, as well as the theory of prisons, it was their unanimous opinion that solitary confinement to hard labor, and a total abstinence from spirituous liquors will prove the most effectual means of reforming these unhappy creatures.”
From that time, though by slow degrees, the penal discipline of the State has advanced in efficiency as well as humanity, and to see prisoners toiling in irons in our streets now, would be as incongruous to all our feelings and habits, as to see the most imposing mansions in our city converted into Indian wigwams, and savage council fires kindled in Independence Square.
But there is work of vast magnitude still to be done, even within the borders of our own Commonwealth. County prisons come into the line of improvement at long intervals, and too often with a reluctant step. The guiltless are not seldom corrupted by the associations which are here allowed, (and which are, perhaps, inevitable,) and the novice in crime is made reckless and incorrigible before he becomes the subject of penitentiary discipline.