Part 3

One peculiarly interesting case of this kind has recently occurred, which is thought to be of sufficient value to justify special reference to it. This was a young man, No. 4,160, aged 17, sentenced January 6, 1860, for two years and six months. He had been a very bad boy, and had been imprisoned before, (but not under our System,) without being benefited. After being in the Penitentiary several months, he was favored with a sense of the “exceeding sinfulness of sin,” and of his need of a Saviour, and by yielding to the monitions of Divine grace, he in due time, as we trust, experienced an entire change of heart, and attained to a state of acceptance in the Divine sight. Several months before the termination of his sentence, he was attacked with consumption, which soon gave evidence that he was not long for this world. During the remainder of his term, his disease steadily progressed and he often suffered much, but he was entirely reconciled to his condition, and felt comparatively happy, esteeming it as a great mercy that he had been placed there, where as he said he had found his Saviour. He only hoped that he might not die till he was discharged, and reached the arms of his pious mother at a distance from this city, for her comfort and his own. On the 6th of July last, at the termination of his sentence, he was discharged. This occurred on the first day of the week. A member of our Committee took him from the Penitentiary to his own house, and kept him there until he could be suitably forwarded to his mother. This member in referring to him remarks, “One evening, after our family reading [of the Scriptures], I went up with him to his chamber and knelt with him at his bedside in prayer, when we each offered up a petition to the Throne of Grace. I was about leaving the room when he said, ‘Don’t go yet, stay and have a good talk.’ I did so, when we had a full and free interchange of thought. I questioned him as to what he was resting his hopes of pardon on, and found that it was on the only sure foundation,--Christ Jesus and his atoning sacrifice.” He reached his mother, and was with her nearly a month when he died on the 8th of August last. The following is an extract from a letter written by her to the member referred to, a few days after his decease: “I know you and Mrs. ---- will sympathize with a sorrow-stricken mother. My darling child is no more. He sweetly fell asleep in Jesus, at 4 o’clock on Friday, August 8th, after three days’ great suffering, which he bore without one murmur. His answers to all were surprising, his conversation humble and childlike. His confidence in his Saviour never wavered; patient, gentle, and loving to all, but to his poor mother he was all love. How hard I feel it to say, Thy will be done! His consoling words to me were, ‘My dear mother, don’t weep but look up.’ In the valley he felt his Saviour’s presence.” Soon after, she addressed to the same another letter, from which the following is an extract: “I did not know how dear I loved him until we were called on to part. His patience under such suffering was surely the work of grace, so gentle, so meek. For a week he seemed to be getting somewhat better, and a ray of hope shot up, he would be spared for some time at least. But four days before his death, ... his agony was great, but not one word of complaint escaped his lips. His whole conversation was his Saviour’s wonderful love. His anxiety for the children’s conversion, especially his brother Thomas, was great, and his prayer that God would make him the instrument in converting one soul was lovely to me, nor have I one doubt but that [his] prayers will be answered.... For the whole day before he died, he kept on saying, ‘Dearest mother, look up but don’t weep.’ At 4 o’clock he called for his brothers and sisters to bid them farewell, which he did, shook hands and kissed each one with a prayer, that his Saviour would grant them grace so to live, as they would meet him in heaven,--but to Thomas he said, ‘Kneel beside me, dear brother.’ Thomas did so, and then James said, ‘Dearest Thomas, will you promise your dying brother to seek the Lord, to give him your whole heart?’ Thomas said he would try; then he lifted his dying eyes to heaven and said distinctly, ‘O Saviour, grant him grace to keep this solemn promise.’ He seemed in great pain. I asked him how the Saviour appeared to him in the dark valley. Aloud and clear he said, ‘Dearest mother, Jesus is precious.’ These were his last words. He became insensible, and continued in a sort of stupor until a few minutes before 4 o’clock, when I whispered in his ear, ‘Do you know your mother, my son?’ He turned such a lovely look of recognition, moved his lips for me to kiss him, I did so, one gentle sigh, and all was over.”

In the introduction to this branch of the Report, we speak of visiting the _prisons_ and the _prisoners_. The Law incorporating our Prison Society, and that conferring on the Acting Committee the character of Official Visitors, contemplate that in addition to the salutary influence we may endeavor to exert upon the prisoners, by social intercourse with them, and impressing upon them moral and religious instruction, we should also observe the workings of our Prison System, bring anything which appears to be wrong to the notice of the proper authorities, that it may be remedied, and suggest any reforms or improvements in the System which may appear to be desirable. Under this view of our duties and privileges, our Committee, besides observing the general condition of the Institution, as to good order, cleanliness, healthfulness, &c., make special inquiries as to the supply of labor furnished the prisoners, whether the ignorant and illiterate among them receive proper attention from the teacher, how they are progressing in their learning, and if those who can read are freely supplied with books from the prison library, and have copies of the Sacred Scriptures placed in their cells. All these inquiries have resulted satisfactorily, excepting that the teaching force is not sufficient to give such frequent lessons to those requiring them, as would be desirable. The progress which many of them make is very gratifying, and indeed surprising. The instances are frequent, where prisoners who entered wholly without school-learning, that is to say, without any knowledge of letters or figures, in a very few months, are able to read, write, and cipher, with considerable facility, and a very gratifying circumstance connected with this is, that most of them highly value the knowledge they are thus acquiring.

The library is now in a very good condition, having been overhauled during the year and a new catalogue prepared, after withdrawing several hundred mutilated and imperfect volumes from the collection. It now contains about 2,600 volumes, all complete and in a good state of preservation, about 2,060 in the English, and 540 in the German and French languages. While the library was regularly open, 11,526 books were loaned, and in addition, considerable reading matter was furnished during the several months in which they were engaged in examining and re-arranging the books, of which no regular record was kept.

The various officers of the Penitentiary, by their general kindness and good temper in their care of and intercourse with the prisoners, evidence their fitness for their position, and as “like begets like,” similar deportment is reciprocated by the prisoners towards them. This is one of the excellent features of our System, which rarely, if ever, calls for the exercise of harshness by the keepers, and, consequently, instead of vindictive or bitter feelings being excited towards them, on the part of those under their control, a mutual feeling of sympathy is frequently brought into action. This was recently very pleasantly exemplified in the presence of a member of our Committee. A keeper, who had charge of about thirty prisoners in one of the corridors, received intelligence of the death of a son in the army, and having obtained leave of absence for a few days that he might go to Virginia to bring home the remains, before leaving, called at the cell of each of those under his care and bade them farewell. Both the words and deportment of the prisoners evidenced that they sympathized with their caretaker in his bereavement. It is also a general practice with the keepers in the evening, as they pass from cell to cell to hand in a light and lock the doors, to exchange a parting salutation with the inmates. We think it must be self-evident, that such a condition of things is much more favorable as a school of reform than that where the harshness of discipline prevails, which is said to be inseparable from the _Silent_ System. The former is like the mellow soil moistened by the gentle shower, which receiving the seed kindly, when deposited by the hand of the husbandman, it soon germinates, and in due season brings forth fruit, which abundantly rewards him for all his toil. Whilst the latter is like the arid, indurated clay, upon which equally good seed may have been scattered, but being dry and impenetrable, it either never springs up, or at best it has a stunted growth, and its yield never compensates for the labor bestowed upon it. The entire number of prisoners in the Penitentiary during the year 1862 was 586. The largest number at any one time was 451, on the first day of the year, and the smallest 353. The number in confinement there on the first day of this year (1863) was 369, to wit: white males 297, white females 18, black or colored males 51, and black females 3. There were 6 deaths and 18 pardons in the course of the year.

The Committee on the County Prison have attended faithfully to their duty as visitors during the year, but the reports from them are not so minute as those from the Committee on the Penitentiary, and, consequently, we are unable to analyze them so as to set forth the particulars of their services. One of the members so thoroughly devotes his time to the duty, as to visit the prison more than 500 times during the year, generally twice a day for more than 250 days. The other members report having among them paid 419 visits in the course of the year.

Under the care of the present judicious and efficient Board of Inspectors, the prison has been satisfactorily conducted; but the population is so unsettled (being largely composed of vagrants, the untried, and those committed for petty offences), that it cannot be considered to fairly illustrate the “Separate System,” and therefore we think it proper to make more especial and extended reference to the Penitentiary than to it.

The Prison “Association of Women Friends” (which is recognized by us as an auxiliary in the good work), have continued to be diligent visitors to the females confined in both prisons, and have entered on the service under a full sense of its serious importance, and with desires that their labors might be promotive of the temporal and eternal good of the visited. In the course of the year they paid 987 visits to the prisoners in the two institutions.

In addition to the moral and religious instruction communicated to those confined in each of the institutions, through the medium of our visitors and those of the association just referred to, the Eastern Penitentiary has, as one of its regular officers, a “Moral Instructor,” whose time is devoted to visiting the prisoners individually in their cells, and there instructing them in those things which most nearly concern their temporal and eternal interests. The present incumbent of the office is John Ruth, a worthy minister of the Methodist persuasion, who appears to be well fitted for the discharge of the duties of his station. Ministers of different denominations also frequently visit the Penitentiary, both for the purpose of having religious opportunities with individual prisoners, and for the more general and public discharge of the duties of their calling. In the County Prison, although there is no regular officer employed for the purpose as in the Penitentiary, yet the institution is pretty well supplied with volunteer religious instructors from different sources, and, on the first day of the week, the prison agent generally procures the attendance there of one or more ministers.

In our Report last year, we informed that the Quarterly Journal, which had been published by the Society for a number of years, was discontinued, and an Annual Report and Journal substituted for it. The principal reason then assigned for the change was, the large absorption of our funds which its publication occasioned, while our means for aiding discharged prisoners and sustaining other objects of practical benevolence in carrying out the original object of our organization, that of “Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons,” were entirely too limited. The result, we think, has already confirmed the propriety of the course then adopted. Our financial condition has considerably improved, and our appropriations in 1862, in aid of discharged prisoners, were upwards of fifty per cent. greater than in 1861.

EDWARD H. BONSALL, } JOSEPH R. CHANDLER, } Committee on TOWNSEND SHARPLESS, } Annual Report, &c. CHARLES C. LATHROP, } ALFRED H. LOVE. }

PHILADELPHIA, _1st Mo. (Jan.) 15, 1863_.

For the Prison Journal.

MAGISTRACY.

The Magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their authority.--BURKE.

Moses, in reply to the question of his father-in-law, “Why sittest thou thyself alone and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?” said, “Because the people, when they have a matter, come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” In him we have a model magistrate. But finding the labor “too heavy” for him, by the advice of Jethro, he confined his duties in this respect to those of an appellant judge, to be for the people “Godward,” to “bring the causes unto God,” and to hear “every great matter,” and he did “provide out of all the people, _able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness_, and placed such over them to be rulers,” or minor magistrates, “and made them heads over the people,” “and they judged the people at all seasons; the hard cases they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judged themselves.” In this record of the first institution of the office of the magistrate, and the qualifications considered as requisite in the man to fill the position, we have a lesson that it becomes us diligently to consider at the present day. If there has been degeneracy of the world since the days of Moses, in no respect perhaps has it been more forcibly felt, than in the mode of administering justice, (or as it would be more properly termed _in_justice,) at the present day, by the police or committing magistrates. The evils resulting to the community, the cruelty done to the unfortunate being who falls into their hands, by the system prevailing and carried out by many of the magistrates, especially of this city, have become so aggravated as to demand a thorough reformation. “Moses chose _able_ men,” whose qualifications were known “out of all Israel.” Men who acted in the “fear of God,” and “who hated covetousness;” or would not take “_fees_” or levy severe contributions on their victims, or the victims of others’ wrongs, or commit them to prison on false or trivial charges, to exact the payment of “charges and costs.” He did not leave the _election_ of the magistrate to any body of the people whom they were to judge, much less to the worst or dissolute portion of them.

The very word “magistrate,” (from _magister_, master,) implying control, direction, suggests to the mind the idea of equity, safety, and purity. It excites reverence and a sense of exalted dignity, and imposes such a power and responsibility as never should be exercised by a bad or incompetent man.

In countries where the magistrate is _appointed_ by the head or ruling power for his qualifications, and is _independent_ of the people over whom he presides, this feeling or sentiment, as a general thing, has been justified. The people living under the administration of such, lay themselves down and sleep in peace, and arise and go to their avocations, feeling that their rights, their property, and their lives are secure, because the righteous magistrate dwells in the land!

Under our democratic ideas, that because “the people are sovereign,” we must therefore permit them, in carrying out these ideas, to exercise the power of electing all of our officials from the highest to the lowest, we run a great risk of placing the liberty and the welfare of the citizen, in the hands of bad and immoral men. However capable the people may be _as a whole_ to judge of the qualifications and fitness of any certain person for a magistrate, _if they would as a whole exercise their sovereignty_, no one, we presume, will claim that the portion of the “sovereigns” who congregate in “grog-shops,” and act under the inspiration of intoxicating beverages, in procuring nominations, are properly exercising the sovereign power, or that “the voice of _the people_,” thus expressed, is “the voice of God.” That _some_ good magistrates, as we truly have, are elected under the present system, but illustrates the truth _that it is possible_ to elect the right kind of men to office, if the better class of citizens will but exercise the privilege of the franchise, which under our theory of government it is the _bounden duty_ of every good man to do.

The evils arising from the magistracy, as at present administered, are the results of two causes, which ought to be removed:

1st. The mode of selecting or making magistrates.

2d. The mode of compensating them.

From the nature and duties of their office, they should be removed as far as possible from any dependence upon the favour, the votes, or the fees of the people over whom they judge or rule.

Being a part of the ruling power, having delegated to them the “mastery” over the people, they should receive their authority or appointment from, and be dependent upon, the supreme authority or head magistrate, or “Master” of the City or State, and his constituted advisers, the council or senate, and removable only for cause. Being thus appointed by him who represents the sovereignty of the people, and by his position and responsibility to the people for his acts, we might reasonably expect to find men appointed, capable of discharging the duties, and worthy of the sacred trust of a magistrate. Again, as to the second point, the magistrate should not in any way be dependent upon, profited by, or have any portion of the “_fees_” of his office, but should be appointed for a certain precinct, ward, or district, and receive a certain _fixed_ compensation or salary from the public treasury. All “fees” or charges, being the penalty for breaking or infringing the laws, should be collected and paid over to the public treasurer by the magistrate, leaving him free to act uninfluenced by them, as the impartial agent of the law, as between the ruling power or sovereignty of the people and the accused, and enable him to act as a peacemaker, or reconciler of difficulties. Under the influence of the “fees” to be derived from “committing” the person accused, is there not danger that self-interest may sometimes induce the magistrate to commit unnecessarily, or otherwise encourage bad feelings between the accuser and the accused, when a more independent position might lead the magistrate to secure a reconciliation and settlement of the difficulty?

All persons thus appointed and acting, should have power to act not only as committing magistrates of persons after examination, to be tried by a higher court or magistrate for heinous offences, but they should be authorized and required to try all trivial or minor cases, summarily, and to decide upon the same, and pronounce sentence accordingly, without appeal except in specified cases. A system similar to this prevails in other cities, or did at least in New Orleans before the rebellion, where Recorders or criminal magistrates acted or presided over certain defined districts; justices of the peace acting in civil cases only, one being entirely separated from the other, and the same person not allowed to act in both positions. The system was found to work to advantage there, though the incumbents of the position, contrary to what we deem wise, were elected by the people. As adjuncts to such a system, a Work-house for mature offenders and vagrants, and a House of Industry (or Refuge) for juvenile ones, to which the magistrate could sentence them, would be needed to relieve our County Prison of the _surfeit_ of cases now sent there, and to relieve the public, by the fruits of their labor, from their cost of maintenance; and so situated as to lead as far as possible to their reformation, and to the formation of habits of industry, regularity, and temperance. Such institutions could, as elsewhere, be made to pay a profit to the city, instead of as now maintaining the victims of the magistrate at heavy cost, in idleness and amidst evil associations. The workings of the present system prevailing in our city, are forcibly presented by the Reports of the Inspectors of the County Prison, and those of the prison agent of the same,[2] from the latter of which we select only the following, which are but a sample daily occurring:

1. One of these cases is that of a young soldier committed [May 15th], on the charge of homicide. The Agent went to Washington, visited the camps, and saw that witnesses therefrom were brought here. These were brought here under the charge of an officer, specially detailed by the Court for the purpose, to prove an alibi in his behalf. It was not, however, found necessary to present this evidence, as another witness was found who testified to seeing the murder committed by a different person. The prisoner, in consequence, was at once acquitted.

2. Another case was that of a United States marine, the victim of a conspiracy, whose object was to have him arrested and imprisoned as a deserter, in order to recover $30, which are usually allowed in such cases by Government. The chief actors here--as it appeared--were a sergeant and two tavern-keepers, who sued him before two different aldermen for an indebtedness, amounting to $17 for board and for money obtained--as they say--under false pretence, which consisted in his promising to pay after receiving his wages from Government. At the settlement the sergeant claimed $135 out of $140.80; exacting one-fourth of the sum loaned for its use, and leaving but $5.80 for the prisoner to cancel the $17 debt. This $135 was paid to the sergeant for the use of $101.25 advanced to the prisoner within 19 days subsequent to his being paid--all of which he had spent. A ten days’ furlough was granted to him, and then he was imprisoned, as above mentioned.

In investigating the case, the Agent learned from the prosecutors, that they intended to get paid by keeping him in prison till after his furlough expired, and then getting the major to arrest him, as a deserter, with a promise that he would see them paid out of money, which the prisoner would eventually have to pay, after being put in irons and confined, for three months, in the barracks--which is said to be the customary punishment in such cases.