1846.] Miss Dix. 123 and invested her name with an interest which cannot fail to attach to anything from her pen. The chosen and almost exclusive sphere of woman's influence is at home, in the warmth of the family hearth. It is but rarely that she is able to mingle with effect in the active labors, which influence mankind. We read with incredulity of the feminine expounder of the Roman law, who illustrated by her lectures the Universities of Padua and Bologna; and the charities of St. Elizabeth of Hungary seem legendary in the dim distance; though, in our own day, the classical productions of the widow of Wyttenbach, crowned a Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Marsburg, and most especially the beautiful labors of Mrs. Fry, only recently closed by death, are high examples of the potent influence which may be exerted by the gentler sex, even beyond the charmed circle of domestic life. Among these examples Miss Dix will receive a place which her modesty would forbid her to claim. Her name will be enrolled among the benefactors of her age. It will be pronounced with gratitude, when the heroes in the ignoble strifes of politics and of war shall be disregarded or forgotten. "Can we forget the generous few, Who, touched with human woe, redressive sought Unpitied and unheard, where misery moans, Miss Dix's labors embrace the penitentiaries, jails, almshouses, poor-houses and asylums for the Insane, throughout the Northern and Middle States; all of which she has visited, turning always a face of gentleness even towards crime, in the hope of comforting the unfortunate, of softening their hard lot, of sweetening their bitter cup, while she obtained such information with regard to their condition, as might, when properly represented, draw towards them the attention of the public. This labor of love she has pursued earnestly, devotedly, sparing neither time nor strength, neglecting no person, however abject or lowly, frequenting the cells of all, and by word and deed seeking to strengthen their hearts. The melody of her voice still sounds in our ears, as she read in the long corridor of the Philadelphia Penitentiary a Psalm of consolation; nor will that scene be quickly effaced from the memory of any who were then present. Her Memorials, addressed to the Legislatures of different States, have divulged a mass of facts, derived from her personal and most minute observation, particularly with regard to the treatment of the Insane, which were remarkably calculated to arouse the sensibilities of a humane people. She is in herself alone a whole Prison Discipline Society. To her various efforts may be applied, without suspicion of exaggeration, those magical words in which Burke has commemorated the kindred charity of Howard, when he says that he travelled "not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, nor the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of modern art; not to collect medals, nor to collate manuscripts; but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the guage and dimensions of misery, depression and contempt; to remember the forgotten; to attend to the neglected; to visit the forsaken, and to compare and to collate the distresses of men." Her "Remarks" contain some of the general results of her observations on different points connected with the discipline of Prisons; as, on the duration of sentences; pardons and the pardoning power; diet of prisoners; water; clothing; ventilation; heat; health; visitor's fees; dimensions of lodging cells in the State penitentiaries; moral, religious and general instruction in prisons; reformation of prisoners; the Penitentiary systems of the United States; and Houses of Refuge for Juvenile Offenders. It would be interesting and instructive to examine carefully the conclusions on all these important topics, which have the sanction of her disinterested experience; but our limits will restrain us, on the present occasion, to a single topic. We are anxious to take advantage of the interest which Miss Dix's publication may excite, and also of the authority of her name, to say a few words on a question which has been much agitated, and is the subject of many books, the comparative merits of what are called the Pennsylvania and Auburn Penitentiary systems. This question is, perhaps, the most important of all that grow out of Prisons; 1846.] Separation of Prisoners. 125 for it affects, in a measure, all others. It involves the construction of the prison, and its administration.* The subject of Prison Discipline, and particularly the question between the two systems, has occupied of late years a large share of the attention of jurists and philanthropists. They have been discussed in all the languages of Europe, to such an extent that the titles alone of the works relating to them would occupy a considerable space in a volume of Bibliography. We have before us, for instance, a list of no less than eleven works in Italian. To Howard, a man of true greatness, whose name will stand high on the roll of the world's benefactors, belongs the signal honor of first awakening the sympathies of the English people in this great work of benevolence. By his travels and labors, he became familiar with the actual character of prisons, and was enabled to spread before the public an accumulation of details, which fill the reader with horror and disgust. Before his day, scarcely a single ray of humanity had penetrated the dreary confines of an English prison. Idleness, debauchery, disease, blasphemy, squalor, wretchedness, brutality, mingled as in a hateful sty. All the unfortunate children of crime, the hardened felon, whose soul was blurred by repeated guilt, and the youthful victim, who had just yielded to temptation, but whose countenance still mantled with the blush of virtue and whose soul had not lost all its original brightness, without any separation or classification, were crowded together, in one promiscuous, fermenting mass of wickedness, with scanty food and raiment, with few or no means of cleanliness, the miserable prey of the contagion of disease and the worse contagion of vice and sin. The abject social degradation of the ancient Britons, in the picture drawn by Julius Cæsar, excites our wonder to a less degree, than the well-authenticated misery of the poor prisoners in the polite annals of George III. Of all the circumstances which conspired to produce this misery, it cannot be doubted that the promiscuous commingling of the prisoners, in one animal herd, was the most Beyond the constant practical interest which it offers, there is a spe cial one at the present moment, in the circumstance that the citizens of Boston are about to erect a new jail, the plan of which is still undeter mined. to be deplored. While this continued, all hope of reform was vain. It was, therefore, with especial warmth, that Howard pleaded for the separation of prisoners, especially at night, "wishing to have so many small rooms or cabins, that each criminal may sleep alone;"* and called attention to the fact that in Holland, "in most of the prisons for criminals there are so many rooms, that each prisoner is kept separate."t The importance of the principle of separation had been first recognized at Rome, as long ago as 1703, by Clement XI., in the foundation of the hospital of St. Michael, or the House of Refuge, where separate dormitories were provided for each prisoner. Over the portal of this asylum, in letters of gold, were inscribed the words of wisdom which Howard adopted as the motto of his labors, and which indicate. the spirit that should preside over the administration of all prisons:- Parum est improbos coercere pæna, nisi probos efficias disciplina: —It is of small consequence to restrain the wicked by punishment, unless you render them good by discipline. The first and most important step in this discipline is, to remove the prisoners from all evil influences; which can only be done by separation from each other, and by filling their time with labor. In furtherance of this principle, and that he might reduce it to practice, as early as 1779, Howard, in conjunction with Sir William Blackstone, drew an Act of Parliament, in the preamble of which is an enunciation of the cardinal truth, which lies at the foundation of all effective prison discipline. "Whereas," says the Act, "if many offenders convicted of crimes for which transportation has been usually inflicted, were ordered to solitary imprisonment, accompanied by well-regulated labor and religious instruction, it might be the means under Providence, not only of deterring others from the commission of crimes, but also of reforming the individuals," etc. Noble words! Here for the first time in English legislation the reformation of the prisoner is proposed as a distinct object. This Act, though passed, was unfortunately never carried into execution, through the perverseness, it is said, of one of the persons * Howard on Prisons, p. 22. + Ibid. p. 45. 1846.] Solitary Confinement. 127 who was associated with Howard, as a Commissioner for erecting a suitable prison. As early as 1790, a law was passed in Pennsylvania, which is of importance in the history of this subject, showing an appreciation of the principle of seclusion with labor. In the preamble it is declared, that the previous laws for the punishment of criminals had failed of success, "from the communication with each other not being sufficiently restrained within the places of confinement, and it is hoped that the addition of unremitted solitude to laborious employment, as far as it can be effected, will contribute as much to reform as to deter;" and the Act further provides that certain persons" shall be kept separate and apart from each other, as inuch as the convenience of the building will admit." As late as 1821, another Act was passed in Pennsylvania, providing "for the erection of a Penitentiary for the separate confinement of the convicts at labor." In pursuance of this Act the Penitentiary was built at Philadelphia, which afforded the first example on an extended scale of the application of the principle of the absolute separation of the convicts from each other, combined with labor. And this Penitentiary has given its name to the class of prisons, which are founded on this principle. In Europe the state of Pennsylvania is hardly more known for her shameful neglect to pay the interest of her public debt, than for her admired system of Prison Discipline. It should be borne in mind, that this system is distinguishable from one of solitary confinement with labor; much more, from one of mere solitary confinement without labor. An intemperate opponent, who has been too rash or too prejudiced to recognize all the truth, has often characterized it as the Solitary system, and by this term not unfrequently aroused a feeling against it, which must disappear before a candid inquiry. The soul shrinks with horror from the cell of perpetual solitude, as repugnant to the unceasing yearnings of the nature of man. terrors of the Bastile, whether revealed in the pictured page of Victor Hugo or in the grave description of dungeons where toads and rats had made their home, contain nothing which fills us with such dread, as the unbroken solitude which was the lot of many of its miserable victims. We have the testimony of Lafayette, whose own further expe The |
