Part 3

About nine years ago a man left the Penitentiary and went to work for his brother-in-law, who was a baker, getting his board only. After some months he came to me saying he wanted to earn some money for himself, and asked me to get him work, even if it was as a laborer on the street. I dissuaded him from that, and encouraged him to remain, so that he might not only learn the business, but also to establish for himself a reputation. This advice was taken; he joined the Episcopal Church. I received a letter from his rector speaking in high terms of him. He afterwards went to another brother-in-law in one of the interior cities of our State. He remained there long enough to become thoroughly acquainted with that branch of business, saving up all his wages--to-day he has two establishments of his own, is married, and doing well.

Another is that of one who had a sentence of over twenty years for atrocious cruelty to an elderly couple in connection with a burglary--his second conviction. It seemed almost a hopeless case, but he was taken in hand by a faithful Christian member of our committee, joined the Episcopal Church, and is a sincere Christian, faithful, and trusted by his employer; has been out over ten years.

Another, to show how difficult it is for a discharged prisoner to obtain a situation. A man was discharged about whom there were strong doubts of his being guilty, not a crime against property. He was a skilled workman in an industry of which there are very few in this country, and such men are in demand. The foreman in the manufactory where he formerly worked agreed to take him the next morning. Calling the men together, he informed them that he was going to take ---- back. They said if he did they would all strike--they would not work with an ex-convict. I boarded him for three weeks, getting odd jobs now and then, and finally sent him to New York, where he has employment in the same branch of business--have had a letter thanking me for what I did for him. Very many such cases could be mentioned. All these were aided on their leaving the prison.

THE OFFICERS.

The warden, D. W. Bussinger, who in the short time he has been in office has proved himself to be very efficient, and has instituted many important reforms. It is his aim to make it the model prison of the United States. He thoroughly understands what is needed, and is truly the right man in the right place.

George Dorward, called the “Principal Overseer,” is very faithful to his duties, and living in some of the apartments of the Penitentiary, is always at hand to render efficient services to the warden.

The Rev. Joseph Welch, the chaplain, officially called the “Moral Instructor,” and his able assistant, the Rev. H. Cresson McHenry, are earnestly desirous for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the prisoners, and are ever on the alert to instil into their minds the necessity for a change in their lives, to cease to do evil, and learn to do well. They devote their time to the good of the prisoner, and the result cannot fail to be beneficial. It is particularly gratifying that the Moral Instructor has such an able and valuable assistant. I have again to thank the warden and all of the overseers for the valuable assistance rendered me in the prosecution of my work, which requires much tact and judgment in determining what is best to be done in such cases.

PHILADELPHIA COUNTY PRISON AND ANNEX.

The Visiting Committee report 848 visits to the prison during the past year, and including the new convict prison at Holmesburg, 6,191 visits reported to prisoners either in the cells or at the cell doors.

The prisons are in good condition, and well kept, and are models for county prisons. It is much to be regretted that every one committed, especially those before trial, could not be kept in a separate cell. Many of those were in prison for the first time, and often associated with hardened criminals, thus rendering our county prisons the nurseries of crime.

Robert C. Motherwell makes a most valuable and faithful Superintendent.

Too much credit cannot be given to the faithful visits of the lady members of the committee, who have religious opportunities with the women, and many of whom have had situations obtained for them, and are known to be leading exemplary lives. Their mission does not cease with their release from prison, but a watchful care is extended to them after their discharge.

The Rev. Joseph J. Camp, the Prison Agent, appointed by the Inspectors, is also a member of the Acting Committee. He has seen many years of service there, and holds a position which is invaluable, and could not well be dispensed with. There are numberless cases of persons who should not be committed to the County Prison. Those cases he faithfully investigates, and secures from the magistrates their release as soon as possible. Very many boys run away from home, stealing rides on freight trains--they are arrested, and sent to prison. He looks up such cases, writes to the parents, who reply that it is their desire that they should be sent back. They are by that time very penitent, and are put on the cars for home. He acts, too, as a peacemaker between families. We honor him for the good work he is doing.

Frederick J. Pooley, the agent of the Society at the County Prison is displaying much zeal and energy in the performance of his arduous duties, and I can but repeat what I have heretofore said of him. He is in love with his work, and feels that God is blessing his services there. He says that while there are many clouds along his pathway, yet he sees more of the sunshine that leads him on to greater efforts in the work in which God has been pleased to call him. His earnest desire is that he may be a benefit both in spiritual and temporal things to those who have become inmates of a prison-cell. Services are held there every Sabbath in the morning for the men, in the afternoon for the women. Once a month he has charge of the latter, and is listened to with marked attention. The committee as well as the management of the County Prison is fortunate in securing the services of such a valuable assistant. He takes especial interest in looking after the many boys who get into trouble--often runaways from home, whom he sends back. Interesting letters have frequently been received from them.

Some of the cases are worthy of mention. One whom he sent to Atlantic City writes thus: “I take pleasure in letting you know I have got work, and to let you know what a little kindness and good advice will do for a poor fellow who is struggling to lead an honest life.” In reply, he advised him to attend some place of worship and to keep from drink. Again the boy writes: “I will try to live up to your advice; I attended church this A. M., the first time in years, and with the help of God, I cannot go wrong. I am working every day, but I am making an honest living--honest dollars are the best kind of dollars--I have fully made up my mind to that.”

A boy whom he sent home to his parents in Newark, N. J., writes: “I am going to work this P. M., and with God’s help, will try to make a man of myself.”

Another boy says, “I owe you a debt of gratitude that can never be paid;” and another writes, “I am going to night-school, to church and Sunday-school, and am trying to be a good boy.”

From a boy he sent home: “I arrived in Baltimore safe, and my mother met me at the depot. I thank you very much for your kindness to me.”

These are cases of boys who have ran away from home, steal rides on freight cars and are arrested when they are arrived and sent to the County Prison, often put in with those who are adepts in crime, their parents are written to, who request that they be sent home. If the money is not sent for the return fare, the Prison Society pays it. Much good is done in this way.

CHESTER COUNTY PRISON.

William Scattergood, President of the Board of Inspectors, and a member of the Acting Committee of our Society visits that prison weekly. He is much interested in the welfare of the prisoners. It is well managed, kept clean, and is in an admirable condition. A new wing has been erected for the women, of whom they have very few.

DELAWARE COUNTY PRISON.

This prison is faithfully visited by Deborah C. Leeds, who reports it to be in good condition and well managed. She holds services there very frequently, which are much appreciated, and her remarks are listened to with marked attention.

OTHER COUNTY PRISONS.

Deborah C. Leeds has been appointed “Visitor to the County Prisons of the State at Large.” In virtue of this appointment, she has visited many of the County Prisons, speaking to the inmates as way opens for it, encouraging them to give up their evil ways and lead new and better lives, looking unto the Lord for help in this respect, without which their efforts will be in vain.

ACTING COMMITTEE VISITS.

To Eastern Penitentiary 731 visits to 15,616 Prisoners. To County Prison, Annex, and House of Correction 848 “ “ 6,191 “ Genl. Secretary to Eastern Penitentiary 352 “ “ 4,000 “ ----- ------ 1,931 25,807

POLICE MATRONS.

The Associated Committee of Women on Police Matrons hold meetings monthly, at which reports are received from the different station-houses where there are matrons in number. A number of interesting cases are reported monthly, of women missing trains, and shelter given them until next morning, feeble-minded women wandering from home--children lost, etc.--These are kindly cared for by the matrons.

It is sad to find such a large number who were arrested for being intoxicated.

Thankful to my Heavenly Father that He has, as I reverently believe, called me to this work and that through all these years He has given me health and strength to perform it, and that I may be more faithful in winning souls unto Christ, and invoking the Divine blessing upon my labor, and that ability may be given me to perform the service with increased zeal and earnestness, with a single eye to the glory of God, and to the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom on the earth, this report is respectfully submitted.

JOHN J. LYTLE, _General Secretary_.

At a meeting of the Acting Committee, held 10th month, 18th, 1900, the Committee on Memorials for deceased members presented the following, in relation to our late fellow-member, Henry M. Laing.

In Memoriam.

HENRY M. LAING, our late esteemed Treasurer, died at Colorado Springs, Colorado, August 1st, 1900, in his 80th year. Funeral ceremonies were held at Friends’ Meeting House, 15th and Race street, Monday, August 13, several members of our Acting Committee attending.

It seems fitting that there should be a minute of record of our esteemed brother, who for nearly 20 years--1873-1892--served the society so honorably and so well, as Treasurer, in the care of its funds, and who had been an active member for many years, beside also being a life member. We revere his memory, as one whom we desire to think of, whose manly disposition and straightforward conscientious dealings led us all to regard most favorably.

Full of years the Lord called him, and we hope to meet him beyond the river of death.

May this note be recorded, and a copy sent to the surviving children by our Secretary.

GATHERED FROM REPORTS AND OTHER SOURCES.

CHANGE OF TREATMENT URGED.

At the discussion on criminals, before the State Board of Charities and Correction, Albany, N. Y., last December, a change of treatment was urged, that “Reformation and not punishment should be the end sought.” Dr. Wm. P. Spratling, Medical Superintendent of Craig Colony for Epileptics, said in part: “I would recommend the following: _First_--Prevent insanity, epilepsy, imbecility, idiocy, and feeble-mindedness as far as possible by making it impossible for them to marry. _Second_--By building less expensive structures in which defective and dependent State charges shall live. _Third_--Maintain at less cost the cases that are chronic and incurable, and maintaining at even greater cost those that probably can be cured. _Fourth_--By giving those that ought to have it an education that they can use in the institution that cares for them, or that they may use in the outer world when they leave the institution.”

Thomas Sturgiss, of New York City, chairman of the Board of Managers of the Elmira Reformatory, read a paper on “The Treatment of the Criminal.” The object of the discussion was to devise some plan for the adoption of a true system of treatment in any and all penal institutions, and the plan determined was

“_First_--Centralization of prisons of every kind other than those of temporary detention only, under State control.

“_Second_--That all prisons shall be taken out of politics, and that they shall be administered by men who are making this profession a scientific study and a life work.

“_Third_--A classification of all criminals, and a division of them among institutions according to such analysis.

“_Fourth_--The specializing of such institutions to the end that each may receive only that class or classes to the treatment of which its situation, its staff, and its system are deliberately adapted.

“_Fifth_--Experience shows that such classification cannot be made by the courts, for lack of time and absence of expert testimony. Provision should be made for such analysis by the head of the institution to which the prisoner is first sent, and that subsequent transfer in accordance with such analysis should be legalized both as to the power of the transferring officer and of the prison to which the transfer is made.

“_Sixth_--The adoption of the principle that reformation (reformation of character) and not punishment is the end sought by imprisonment, with such application of the indeterminate sentence and the parole system as the class and condition of the prisoner and the character of the management may justify.

“The time has gone by when we seek to punish the criminal simply. Punishment as a deterrent has failed. We now seek to reform, if we can, and to seclude for the protection of society if we cannot. Education and training in self-control and in the ability to do useful wage-earning work, are the basis of reform.

“Whatever the system in any prison, it should contain, high above everything else, the element of hope. This should never be abandoned while life lasts, if the mental powers are normal. Omit this and you take away the strongest inspiration to reform and substitute despair. Include it and you give the guardian of the prisoner his strongest weapon; and to the prisoner himself, a gleam of light in the surrounding darkness, shining from the open door through which, if he wills it, he may once again pass to finish his life experience under the conditions of freedom.”

“Every prison from a jail up should be in some measure a reformatory, an institution where the inmates received instruction in industrial pursuits, in wage-earning labor, in letters, and moral precepts.”

Secretary McLaughlin of the N. Y. State Prison Commission, stated that the present prison population of the State in custody was 10,350 (being a decrease in five years of 2,311) of these 1,197 were women of which 342 were in the workhouse, Blackwell’s Island.

Among the State improvements suggested were:

1. In order to furnish the convicts with employment under the present Constitution, further legislative restriction should cease and officers and institutions should comply with the law in good faith.

2. The state should furnish the prisons with new and modern buildings, especially at Sing Sing and Auburn.

3. The hope to see the lock-step and the prison stripes suppressed among the prisoners of the higher grades in every prison.

4. When prisoners, whose education has been utterly neglected are received, there should be compulsory education in the common English branches.

5. An efficient parole law should be adopted applicable to the State’s prisons. Such a law is recommended by the Commission and by the Superintendent and wardens of prisons.

6. The State should watch over a man after his discharge from prison, aid him in finding employment, and in the meantime, render him assistance if necessary.

7. It has been wisely suggested that even life prisoners should be under some system of parole. Probably by special enactment. There are 177 life convicts, many are not habitual criminals, but convicted of murder in the second degree, while in heat of passion or under the influence of liquor. Some have already served 20 to 40 years.

STATE PRISON DILEMMA.

Some “prison reformers” so-called, seem to be laboring under the impression that it is possible to keep convicts profitably employed without subjecting free labor of some sort to competition. A moment’s reflection, however, shows that this impression is erroneous. The best that can be done is to distribute industries in the prisons so as to reduce competition to the minimum, and that it is the policy which the State is now pursuing. A sash and door factory has just been established at Sing Sing, the output of which is to be used in public buildings. This leaves the market for sashes and doors practically to the free labor employed in that industry, and yet the fact remains, that but for this prison factory the State would have to patronize the other ones. The Amended Constitution and recent legislation in conformity with it have rendered the task of keeping convicts at work a problem. Of course they might be employed piling and unpiling stones in the prison grounds for no other purpose than to prevent them from being idle. But experience has proved that fruitless work of this sort is bad for convicts, tending to demoralize them. Unless they are given something to do worth doing they grow morbid and ripe for further mischief. Road-making as an experiment may be worth trying. The Superintendent of prisons says he finds it exceedingly difficult to keep convicts employed without antagonizing the Constitution, until the Legislature makes the present law mandatory.

HOW TO DEAL WITH WICKED MEN.

The prevention and cure of crime, the best methods for this, says Frank B. Sanborn, the political economist of Massachusetts--why “Prison science is in its infancy, so far as the world at large is concerned.” Pathetic and humiliating is the tardy advance made in this direction. Very provoking to the enlightened are the dull indifferences and frequent hallucination of the community in regard to the treatment of criminals.

Gradually, however, there has grown up in regard to a large class of criminals, the so-called “first offenders,” most rapidly in these United States, and chiefly in the past thirty years, something that may justly be turned “prison science.”

Its best examples are in the men’s prison at Elmira, which is the outgrowth of Mr. Brockway’s half century of experience in controlling and instructing convicts, and in the woman’s prison at Sherborn, Mass., lately under the inspiring government of Mr. Johnson.

As yet the criminals of longer habituation in guilt have come but little under this new development of prison science, except that in some States they now receive an added sentence when proved to be an old offender. But the tendency is where crime is best understood, to establish a small class of “incorrigibles,” for whom perpetual imprisonment shall be the sentence.

This is on the theory that such can never be safely returned to the community, upon which they are found perpetually preying, with a reasonable hope that they can be cured of evil habits. From these, should be distinguished a much greater class of criminals, who are temporarily incorrigible, but will yield to the methods, somewhat prolonged.

WHERE DEATH PENALTY IS NEEDED.

Governor Dockery, of Missouri, in his message to the Legislature of that State, recommends a law prescribing the death penalty for kidnappers of children for ransom. Also recommends that it be enacted in every State. It should also apply to another crime, which our penal laws do not properly reach--railroad train wrecking, which is often attended with a wholesale slaughter of life, and those who commit it seldom receive their just punishment, though abhorred and dreaded more than the ordinary murderer.

THE LOCK-STEP.

At Sing Sing prison the lock-step has been abolished for first offenders; it ought to be given up everywhere. The men are often identified as having been to N. Y. State Prison by the shuffling habit; a military step has been substituted. Superintendent Collins has noticed that the lock-step has grown on a prisoner to such an extent, that he will fall in behind people on the street unconsciously in true lock-step fashion.

A gang of convicts belonging to Class A, all carpenters or masons, were sent to work on the new prison at Mapanoch, Ulster Co., N. Y., and 250 from Clinton and Auburn. The new prison will cost $700,000. It was first intended for a reformatory, but the plan was changed to a State prison with accommodation for 1,000 convicts.

GRADING AND CLASSIFYING OF PRISONERS.

_From the Report of the Board of Control, Iowa._

This is carefully done in all our reformatories, but in the State penitentiaries and penal institutions very rarely. It seems fitting now, that the public desire is not only to hold the convict, but to encourage self help, by a system of regular graded or progressive classifications of prisoners, based on character, and operated on a system of marks. Hope should be made an ever present force in the minds of the prisoner, by a system of rewards for good conduct, that carries with it a promotion from a lower to a higher grade.

In connection with this system of classification, a well regulated parole and indeterminate sentence law will be enacted by the Legislature; thereby placing the destiny of the prisoner in his own hands, and by his own exertions to continually better his condition. The object of imprisonment and prison government is for the protection of society and for the reformation of the prisoner. It is plain the State does not discharge its obligation until one or both these objects have been clearly accomplished. If the prisoner cannot be reformed, he must be held indefinitely, yet the parole system in connection with established grades may be so administered as to secure these results. It is better than a definite sentence (that does not reform) without a provision of parole; but more effective when coupled with the reformatory or indeterminate sentence, because it makes a stronger appeal to the convict for his co-operation.

It is gratifying to know that this is to be introduced into all the State penal institutions of Iowa.

RECLAIMED CRIMINALS BY PAROLE LAWS.

It is only in recent years that the idea of making a good man out of a bad one has had any prominence in the penal system. The old idea was simply to punish the criminal and lock him away from honest people so he could do them no more harm. The actual result seemed to have proved that it made him more proficient in the school of crime. In many States this evil still exists. In New York State for example, seventy per cent. of the released convicts return to criminal lives. Several other States have tried the plan of releasing well-behaved convicts, with comparatively clean records, finding work for them, and keeping them under surveillance until assured of their reform. Here are the results:

Offenders Redeemed. Returned to Crime.