science of every man and every woman in the community, the duty of aiding in some way, either by personal effort or the contribution of money, or both, in the removal of those abuses, and the reform of the prisons. Warming in his subject, and rising to a rare strain of pathos and power, he exclaimed, in reference to our chief city prison: "The Tombs! an awful name; but how appropriate! how descriptive! how significant! The Tombs! where living men are buried, and by a refinement of cruelty, the living are chained to the dying and the dead, until the whole become one mass of moral putrefaction. The Tombs! whence those who were buried issue forth again, speaking and moving as men, and bearing the form of humanity; but with death-death spiritual and final-stamped on their visages and reigning in their souls. These are strong words, sir; but they are not stronger than the occasion demands; not stronger than the truth requires; not stronger, nor half so strong as the claims of that duty which our knowledge of the truth imposes."

The report of the first year's labors shows that the society had entered intelligently, industriously, and successfully upon its work. · Mr. Isaac T. Hopper was appointed agent of the society, with the special design of acting as an aid to the detention and discharged convict committees. A female department was organized; a home for the reception of discharged female prisoners was established; and a matron appointed to take charge of it. After several years of associated labor, this department became a separate organization, under the name of "The Women's Prison Association and Home." Both before and since the separation, the ladies composing this association have worked bravely and effectively, under the animating power of faith and love, in a field of christian effort hard and unpromising in itself, which has yet, under their carnest and kindly culture, been made to yield much precious fruit. The whole number received into the home has exceeded 3,000, and the average daily number has been about thirty. One-sixth of those received have been found incorrigible, and have either left without permission, or been discharged as unworthy. Of the remaining five-sixths, the great majority have been placed in situations at service, concerning the greater part of whom satisfactory assurances of their reformation have been received. The expense of each inmate, including rent and salaries, has been less than $100 per annum, one-fourth of which has been defrayed on an average by her own earnings. In a late report, the managers thus speak of the nature and scope of their work:

"Ours is no refuge for the idle; those who are found to be incorrigibly so are sent away. Ours is no hospital for the sick; those

who are incurably so are transferred to and cared for in other institutions. Ours is no shelter for the vicious; to them the air of industry and propriety of thought and action, which pervades all our chambers, becomes most repulsive, and either causes their speedy voluntary flight, or so brings to light their evil propensities that they are soon sent away. Ours is no almshouse for the mere physically infirm; for them other refuge is found. Ours is, emphatically, a Home for fallen woman, when the spirit of remorse has been awakened within her, and repentance begins to make its redeeming voice heard; when the green spot, which the Almighty Father has planted in every human heart, however degraded may have been its past, shows signs of a coming spring; and when, to the torn and contrite spirit encouragement and hope may profitably be spoken."

We now return from this digression, and resume our history, being still on the first year of the society's labors. The members of the detention committee, though pressed by the claims of private business, were zealous and active in the discharge of their duties in the cause of humanity. Their visits to the detention prisons of New York and Brooklyn were sufficiently frequent to give them a familiar acquaintance with their condition and working. They speak of them as a disgrace to the public authorities; as inflicting a grievous wrong on the community; as illconstructed, ill-arranged, void of all proper system, costly in their maintenance, and baneful in their moral influence. They congratulate themselves, however, on having accomplished some good results in this field, particularly in the attention given to eighty boys who had been arrested for a violation of law, forty-eight of whom had been returned to their friends, and, as was hoped, saved from a career of crime and restored to the path of rectitude.

The discharged convict committee also labored assiduously, and with an encouraging success. The great object here was to prevent released prisoners from relapsing into crime, by securing them from the temptations of want, and affording them the means of earning an honest livelihood. Two hundred and twentynine discharged prisoners were aided by furnishing them, to a less or greater extent, with board, clothing, tools, etc., etc. Eighty-three were provided with situations, concerning seventy of whom the association had received reports from their employers of their continued good character; a proportion, the committee say, beyond what might have been expected, and showing that much good may be done even to the fallen, without any great expenditure of time or money. The committee insist that it is a sad mistake to suppose that all convicted criminals are hopelessly depraved. This

is so far from being the case that the greater part may, they believe, by encouragement and judicious aid, be won back to the ways of virtue, while the very same persons would, in all probability, by hardness and rigor, be again plunged into the abyss of crime.

The committee having charge of the department of prison discipline were particularly enjoined to visit and inspect the various penal institutions of the State. That they might be able to discharge this duty in a satisfactory manner, under instruction from the executive committee they applied to the Legislature for an act of incorporation, with power to examine both State and county prisons. The Assembly passed the necessary bill; but the Senate refused its assent, and the bill failed to become a law. Nevertheless, the committee, by courtesy, inspected not only the prisons of New York and Brooklyn, but also the State prison at Sing Sing and some six or eight county jails. They found defects of a grave and glaring character-filth, vermin, idleness, ill-ventilation, frequent change of officers, etc., etc.; together with a huddling together, in the same apartment, of prisoners of all grades and ages, and in some instances, of both sexes. They found the promiscuous association of the prisons to be for evil and evil only. They found the prisoners, including the man of gray hairs and the mere child, the murderer and the vagrant, the expert and the novice in crime, all herded together, and subjected to influences the most corrupting and ruinous. The Association, in this its first annual report, took ground distinctly in favor of solitary confinement in all detention prisons and county jails. They avowed the opinion that, whatever arguments might be used against the separate system for more protracted imprisonments, that system is obviously and decidedly preferable for short ones.

In regard to the two leading systems of prison discipline - the separate and the congregate-the Association declared itself not pledged to either, but disposed rather to favor a plan combined of both. It believed that thus a system might be devised, which would avoid the evils and secure the advantages of each. It still adheres to the same belief, and is happy to know that this principle is embodied and made fundamental in the Irish prison system, where it is rapidly uniting the suffrages of the enlightened and the humane throughout the civilized world. The congregate system had been too generally administered with harshness and rigor, and this evil had been considered inseparable from the system. It was this consideration mainly that created so strong a prejudice against the congregate system in the several commissions from European states, sent out by their respective governments to inspect the prisons of the United States.

The Prison Association, in their first annual report, took ground against the idea that the severity complained of was necessarily inherent in the congregate system, but maintained that it was due to the want of fitness and adequate qualification in the persons selected to administer it. In confirmation of this view, the Association referred to the Boston House of Correction, in which, during a period of twelve years, though more than seven thousand criminals had been received, not a blow had been struck, and yet the best of discipline had been maintained. It also referred to efforts, then recently and successfully made, to introduce a milder system of government into the prison at Sing Sing. Even in the male prison, where the re⚫ form had been by slow and timid steps, the number of lashes per month had been reduced from three thousand to two hundred and fifty; and the prison was nevertheless better governed than it had been before. But in the female prison, where the change was made with bolder and more rapid strides, the greatest success was attained, and the highest encouragement afforded; for whereas previously the number of offences against prison rules had been at the rate of four hundred and fifty per annum, now the offences were reduced to forty; and yet the discipline was superior to what it had been previously. Where all had been disorder and turbulence before, all was order and quietness now. These results were secured by laying aside the harsher features of the congregate system, and replacing them by the milder discipline of the separate system.

Such was the work done, such the results achieved, and such the convictions attained, during the first year of the society's existence.

SECOND YEAR'S WORK,

The second anniversary of the Association was held on the evening of the 22d December, 1846, and was no less interesting than the first. Representatives were present from the Philadelphia and Boston prison societies, and letters were read from distinguished gentlemen both of our own country and Europe. Some of these communications present thoughts and suggestions so important, and withal so timely just now, that we do not hesitate to offer a few brief extracts. Dr. Julius, of Prussia, said: "You have again rescued your State from the unfeeling and harsh discipline of Captain Lynds, whose effects in Sing Sing and in Auburn, in former times, I was able to investigate myself, on my visit to your country. The same yoke was at that time imposed by Mr. Wiltse, and I am happy that you have so fully succeeded in introducing quite a different state of things, though the [Senate No. 21.]

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immense size of both your State prisons will always remain an insurmountable barrier to a permanent improvement and to a reforming administration. I should think that separate prisons ought never to have more than 300 prisoners, and penitentiaries on the silent system perhaps a little more. This, I think, is the reason why Wethersfield has been well conducted, nearly without corporal punishment." The suggestion here regarding the size of prisons is one of vital importance, and well deserves the serious consideration of those who make our laws.

The following eloquent passage occurs in the letter of the Hon. Wm. H. Seward: "You ask me, gentlemen, to cheer and encourage you. Such encouragement can be derived only from the inflexible purpose of doing good amid much unavoidable misapprehension and reproach. For there is nothing immediately attractive to society in sympathy for offenders who have endangered its safety and disturbed its peace. Humanity to convicts is eminently conservative in its operation. But no man can invoke humanity for the convict without being suspected of a bad ambition; and no man can alleviate the punishment of the criminal without drawing upon himself the anger of those who derive personal satisfaction from the inflictions of social justice. Our holy religion makes no distinction among the prisoners whom it enjoins us to visit. Your experience has taught you that such ministrations bless those who render even more than those who receive them, and you are sure of ultimate vindication. An Oglethorpe, a Howard and a Clarkson have gained immortal names on earth by labors similar to yours; and Christianity is a fraud, if the charity which believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, and withal vaunteth not itself, cannot open the gate of heaven."

But by far the most important extract we offer is from the letter of Dr. S. G. Howe, of Boston, as follows: "The object of your Association is a high and noble one; I know of none more so. While others are hurrying on the vanguard in the great march of humanity, or toiling to keep the main body in continued progress, you are busy in the rear ranks, helping the feeble, comforting the helpless, and lending a helping hand to those who have been neglected or trodden down in the unequal pressures of society. May your success be equal to your merits, and your reward be found in the number of those who, through your means, shall be lifted from the hell of sensualism to the heaven of moral purity. If I read the signs of the times aright, a better day is dawning upon that unfortunate class of our fellow-men, who have hitherto furnished the material of the jail, the penitentiary