Part 5

It is dangerous—it is at least wrong—to make a low estimate of the labors that take a human being from the cells of a prison, when his character is such as to lead to a belief that he will do no wrong, by example, to society, nor sink in the scale of morals. It is wrong to say that the verdict of a jury fully acquits a man, restores him at once and entirely to society, and wipes away the stain which a prison cell has imparted. Thousands hear of the charge who never know of the acquittal,—thousands recollect the man as the inmate of a prison, who have no remembrance of the full cause of his release. The adverse statement of the press, as it regards the act, or the adverse testimony on the trial, lives in the minds of many who do not know, or scarcely would care, about all that was said in behalf of the accused to induce a complete acquittal.

We know the power of conscious innocence; but we know also the effect of conscious disgrace. A man who has been imprisoned long, on a criminal charge, may, in his chamber, or in his family, feel the peace of a “conscience void of offence;” but, abroad in the world, he will feel himself continually on the defensive,—always anxious to show that he is still worthy of the confidence he seeks,—always fearful that some act or word of his, unnoticeable in others, may be construed as consistent with charges which he has publicly disproved; and he feels that the months or weeks of imprisonment which he has suffered, are not to be redeemed by a whole life of liberty and honorable conduct.

There is something in the atmosphere of a criminal prison which seems never to forsake the liberated prisoner: he feels its influence, and suspects all to be guarding against its infection. In his imagination, the deadly mephitic air is always about him. A reflection of innocence, or a sense of repentance and full reparation, may appease the conscience, but they will not take away the remembrance of the incarceration; and it is to be feared that such painful reflections have, when acting upon a morbid sensibility, led to suicide, or to a return to crime. To diminish the evil, to lessen the effect of guilt, to save self-respect, and restore man to the duties and enjoyments of society, are the objects of the labors of the Agent, when he interferes to save even the offender from such a punishment as shall operate upon him beyond the demands of the law, and, reaching even over the culprit, shall bring misery and disgrace and ruin upon his dependent family.

It is in this light the services of the Agent are to be regarded. He releases hundreds of innocent persons, every year. He restores to family and friends those who have been detained for insignificant offences. He calls from the cells of the prison such as may have done acts that would have lead to a criminal life, and he gives them their freedom before association with the bad has weakened their moral perception,—before they can have formed resolutions to revenge upon society the offence of their incarceration. He assists to save the convict from a return to the haunts of vice, and the associations that led to his crime and his protracted imprisonment, and, supplying trifling sums, and aiding in the application of funds furnished to him, he has seen the prisoner leave the cell which he had occupied for more than a year, and return to a distant family, to commence a life of improvement, and become a useful member of the community in which he was reared; and it may be added that, in one instance, at least, while the care of the Agent, in connection with an Inspector, saved the released female from fulfilling an engagement of crime which she had rashly formed, it placed her in the bosom of a family that received her as a child, and made her feel all the comforts and confidence of home which can be felt by the repentant and the forgiven.

The immense saving to the city and county, resulting from the efficient labors of the Agent, by which is saved the cost of maintenance in prison, and of trial and acquittal in court, is worthy the consideration of the tax-payer, and is appreciated by the Inspectors of the prison, who administer the moneys appropriated to the maintenance of the imprisoned. This Society is specially concerned in the moral and physical results of the labors of the Agent, and feel that the objects proposed in the formation of the Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Prisons, have been greatly promoted by the successful labors which they authorize and which they approve.

The Agent of the Society for the County Prison makes a monthly report of his labors, and his small expenditures for clothing furnished to the outgoing prisoner, and for his fare to some other place. These reports show the constancy and the value of his labors in the right direction. We have already mentioned the number of the releases secured by his efforts. We may, perhaps, appropriately repeat here a remark elsewhere made, that the services of the Agent are not required with prisoners whom the Inspectors are by law competent to discharge,—such as are committed for drunkenness, disorderly conduct, vagrancy, breach of the peace, and such offences; but to cases that require the intervention of the magistrates or the courts to release the accused, the interference of the Agent is directed. Among the many cases which he has reported to the Society, we select a few which serve to illustrate the character of his labors, and their influence in alleviating the miseries of prisons, and serving the cause of the unfortunate innocent, whose errors may have led them into questionable situations, or whose poverty may have placed them in bad company or adverse circumstances.

_Case First._—A woman was incarcerated upon the charge of the larceny of two fifty dollar notes, of which she was innocent. Her imprisonment was very unjust. She was taken from her home, with her little infant in her arms, and committed to the prison, and separated from her three other children. The Agent ascertained on inquiry that the prosecutor had accused three other persons at different times for taking the money that the prisoner was accused of taking. When the Agent informed the “Court and District Attorney” of these facts, her case was ignored, and she was released from prison, there not being a particle of evidence against her aside from the mis-representation made by the prosecutor.

It is scarcely necessary to comment on this case, for though the justice of the movement is sustained by the judicial officers of the court, we have few of the facts which gave poignancy to the innocent sufferer.

_Case Second._—Was that of a husband and his wife, imprisoned for the larceny of an old three-prong table fork, of little or no value, which he found in a pile of ashes in the street. He took, cleaned and repaired it, and put a particular mark upon it, such as he had upon all his tools in his workshop, he being said to be a respectable mechanic. He then gave it to his wife for the use of his family, and for _this they_ were both arrested and imprisoned, on the oath of a quarrelsome neighbor, who testified that it was her fork, and she knew it by the mark upon it; which the prisoner said could not be the case, as it was he that put _this_ the only mark upon it. It was certain that they both could not have stolen the fork, although each of them was committed to prison for the same offence. They were respectable looking people, who had never been in prison before. The woman was in great distress of mind, and on the eve of her confinement. They resided in “Columbia Avenue,” the extreme northern part of the city, and were sued before a magistrate in the extreme southern part of the city. This circumstance indicated a malicious feeling on the part of the prosecutor, and particularly so in causing the mother to be separated from her infant child that had been left at home uncared for, as the officer would not allow her to return home and take her child to prison with her. And this was mainly the cause of her mental suffering that was so apparent to all who saw her. The Agent deeply sympathized with them in their unfortunate condition, and went to the magistrate and immediately procured their unconditional discharge, all of which had been done within an hour after the Agent’s attention was called to the case. They were then released and permitted to return to their home, as it did not appear that they were in any way guilty of the charge brought against them.

_Case Third._—Two young soldiers that were from the State of Maine. One of them was of a family of the highest respectability; they were accused of stealing a silver watch valued at $18, for which offence they were committed to prison. When the parents of one heard of the imprisonment of their son, they addressed a note to the Warden of our Prison expressing their surprise at his imprisonment. They stated that they had never known him to do anything wrong, but to the contrary he had always conducted himself in such a way as to command the respect of all who knew him. They wished to know whether it was necessary to send on money to employ counsel to defend him. This letter was handed to the Agent, who made himself thoroughly acquainted with their case, and who believed they were innocent. The letter was answered, and the parents were informed by the Agent that he believed their son was innocent of the charge that he was accused of, and the case would be attended to free of charge, and that it was not necessary to send any money. It was not long after this that the Agent succeeded in ascertaining that these young men were entirely innocent of the charge they were accused of, and so far from having stolen anything, they had been robbed by their prosecutor. After having been induced to drink _liquor_ that was drugged, they became intoxicated, and were taken out under the cover of night and laid at the door of the adjoining house. The very party that robbed them, went to a magistrate and made oath that they had stolen a silver watch of the value of $18 from him; for which offence they were committed. They had been engaged in one of the late battles, and both of them were wounded and sent to the Chestnut Hill Hospital, where they had _partially recovered_ from their wounds, and as they were _convalescent_, permission was granted them to visit the city, where they got into the difficulty. The Agent succeeded in ascertaining from one of the _inmates_ of the tavern where the occurrence took place, that the young men were entirely _innocent_ of stealing the watch, and that the prosecutor had actually _offered to sell_ the watch the next day after they were imprisoned. Soon as this fact was discovered, the Agent got a _return_ of the case from the magistrate, took it into Court, and informed the _District Attorney_ of all the facts in the case; the prosecutor was sent for, but was nowhere to be found, as he had _suddenly disappeared_ and left for New York, he having become _alarmed_ at the Agent’s interference in the case. Their case was laid before the Grand Jury and ignored, and they were released from prison and permitted to return to their hospital where they could have their wounds properly attended to. The Agent then addressed a letter to the anxious parents of the one that their son’s innocence was fully established, and that he was _honorably discharged_ by the Court. This intelligence was no doubt gratifying to them.

If this third case is well considered, it will present an instance of the value of the services of the Agent, and consequently of the value of the Society, which must be gratifying to every friend of humanity. It seems almost impossible to free our large cities from the haunts of the vicious into which these young men had been enticed, and while they exist it seems certain that crime will not only abound, but progress, not merely in amount but in impunity. The feelings of those interested in the welfare and character of these young men, may be imagined when they learn of their release from prison and their full acquittal of the charge of felony. The course of vice had indeed been entered, and idle curiosity (at least) had been partially gratified in the dangerous exploration by these young men, and now perhaps they may understand the significance of monitions, against entering the path that leads down to destruction and associating with those “whose feet take hold on hell.”

MAGISTRACY.

Persons visiting the County Prison, are struck with the evidence that abounds of some great defect in the system of primary justice in this city; and the evils so justly and so greatly to be deplored, are often unhesitatingly referred to the incompetency or malfeasance of a portion of the magistrates by whom the vagrants, the drunkards, and the violators of the public peace are committed. Without offering an opinion at present on the question, whether we owe the results of which we speak, to the ministers of justice, or to the system upon which they receive their office, and discharge its duties, we are certainly right in saying that any attempt to alleviate the miseries of public jails, must first grapple with the administration of primary justice; must begin with creating a respect for the officers of the law, and must satisfy the accused that the object of arrest is not so much the profit of the magistrate as the benefit of society; and that while the balance is held with a clean and steady hand, the costs are imposed less for the benefit of the magistrate than for the punishment for a violation of the law and the improvement of the offender.

But before we can hope for any amendment of the system, we must enable the public to comprehend the reality and the extent of the evil which is deplored, and which it is the object of the friends of sound justice to correct.

The “Station-House” and the County Prison are crowded with persons who do not feel that they have done an injury to others, or at most, they think their offence is of a most venial kind. The offence of “vagrancy” is so undefined, that it is easy to commit almost any idle person upon such a charge, and equally easy to let him go. “Disorderly conduct,” which appends to the offence of drunkenness, the punishment of a month confinement instead of a day is so uncertain in its character, that the jubilant politician is in danger of imprisonment if his huzzas are strengthened and multiplied by even moderate potations. And “disorderly house” is made to cover all kinds of disturbances between singing loud to a crying child, and the repeated orgies of drunkenness and prostitution, just as “misdemeanor” includes all indictable offences below actual felony. And “abuse and threats,” that formerly expressed something definite, now fill the commitment with most undefinable charges, and the cells with most astonished and astonishing inmates.

The whole system of magisterial justice has, in this city, fallen into disrepute; and those who are the objects of its penalties, seem to lose respect for its ministers and their ministration, and to regard arrest and imprisonment as a misfortune which is as likely to fall upon one as another, if poor, and which therefore justifies any effort to evade the penalty.

This was not always so; we speak of the estimate of aldermanic justice. There never was a time when vice and crime did not abound in a great city, and, consequently, if respect for public rights exists, and a necessity for order is admitted there is likely always to be business for the police, and cases for the magistrates. But there is a mode of conducting both arrests and “hearings,” that makes the difference in the proceedings and their effects. And when we shall have looked a little more into the details of the matter as they are presented, we shall not only see the cause of the evils which we deplore, but shall rapidly and easily arrive at a conclusion with regard to some of the means which are to be employed to alleviate the miseries of public prisons, and thus see that the subject of which we now treat, is one that directly connects itself with the aims of the Society, and that it demands from us an opinion of the evil which it involves, and a consideration of the plans which may be suggested as a remedy.

The small income from the office of Alderman in this city is augmented by a salary allowed to six of them, who may happen to be of the right kind of politics to ensure their claims upon Councils to be elected Police Magistrates. The changes which the Charter of the City has undergone by amendments and substitution, have left Philadelphia in an anomalous situation with regard to offices. Every ward in the city has one or more Aldermen, who possess now little else than the functions of a justice of the peace. And the roll of officials bears also the name of a “Recorder,” yet that functionary has few if any other relations with the city government than has the humblest of the Aldermen; or if he has, it is some remnant of ancient obligation to do service never required, or to demand fees seldom paid to him. No one can deny that the present Recorder discharges well the duties of a justice of the peace, so far as his power extends; but no one will say that the office is essential to any branch of justice in the city if all others are well executed.

We speak now rather in abstract, but it may not be out of the way to say, that the citizen who occupies at present the place of Recorder, seems to illustrate the idea of an efficient magistrate, as, without any particular call upon him, he has been a terror and a scourge to evil doers, and thus he magnifies his office, and makes it honorable.

The report of our Prison Agent, extracts from which have been given, shows to what an extent the evil to which we allude has already extended. His labors procured the release of more than a hundred persons every month. Now, though in many instances the prisoner thus released may have violated some law, and thus have rendered himself obnoxious to the penalties of the statute, yet in a greater part of the committals, investigation shows that the idea of just convictions did not enter into the complaint, and that the magistrate might have caused a settlement of the matter, without recourse to incarceration, in the infliction of fine; or at least it would be easy so to amend the laws of the State as to empower the magistrate to deal thus with the accused. Much the largest part of the commitments, however, are of a kind that do not often come to the knowledge of the Agent, but are referred to the “Visiting Inspectors” of the Prison. These are for drunkenness, disorder, breach of the peace, and vagrancy; and as an Act of Assembly gives to the Inspectors of the Prison the power to discharge persons committed for such offences, it follows that many committed for thirty days are released before the expiration of their term. Intoxication is charged, and the miserable offender is sent to the prison; perhaps a family is dependent upon his or her labor, or an infant needs the nourishment, which only a mother can afford; and the miserable mother is suffering from an excess of that from which only an infant can ordinarily relieve her.

An innocent woman has often been taken up in a grand swoop which a spasmodic effort of the police has made, and she is included in the long list of commitments as drunk, or a vagrant. Many of those who were guilty of the lower offences charged against them receive no good from their incarceration, and society is not benefited by their removal from the labor which maintains them and a family, and the imprisonment devolves upon the city the expenses of the support, often both of the offenders and their families.

A considerable portion of the community that have acquaintance with the prison by commitment, are of a class that think all personal redress, and all protection from wrong, and all safety from the consequences of their own misconduct lie in an appeal to the magistrate, and a trifling quarrel in a neighborhood frequently leads to the arrest and incarceration of the principal members of several families, and the offending and the offended parties are often seen withdrawing from the contests of hands and clubs, and contending in a foot race to see which shall first enter complaint before a magistrate. Often in these matters both succeed; each contrives to get his antagonist into prison, and mulct him in costs. Occasionally it happens, that “the race is not to the swift;” success is found to depend on the possession of the means to pay the first cost of the action. Perhaps the most painful, because the most unrighteous, of this kind of suits, are those in which a quarrelsome drunkard, having beaten his wife, proceeds at once to the magistrate and charges her, on oath, with assault and battery, or with assault and threats, and the poor woman comes down to the prison with her head bruised, her eyes blackened, and her whole frame bearing marks of the outrageous injury inflicted by her cowardly, drunken husband, who, after a few days, finding his household matters in some derangement for want of a female head, obligingly releases his wife from prison, till his time for another debauch has arrived. Nor is it to be denied that the drunken wife often, very often, brings the husband into similar difficulties. In some of these cases a magistrate might, by interference, mitigate a portion of the misery which is inflicted, and by his friendly advice prevent much that usually follows.

This constant resort to litigation in those who have no “cause” but what they create of themselves, is one of the crying evils of the times. The facility of a warrant, and the knowledge that the facility results from its price, cause a large portion of the cases which reach our courts of justice, or are settled, “with costs,” between the Alderman’s office and the jury-room.

Another class of cases is found in the prison—that of disorderly houses. Now it is well understood that the term “disorderly house,” has a specific signification when connected with a charge before an Alderman; yet, on enquiry as to the character of the “disorder,” it frequently happens that the offenders were in the exercise of customary rights in their own apartment. Singing, perhaps, or talking loudly; or, it may happen, that not even such disturbances are mentioned. But the proprietor of the house, usually an under-letter, can do better with his contracted premises by a larger rent, or more ready collection, he therefore incurs the cost of magisterial interference, the tenants, he knows, cannot find freehold bail, they will sell a part of their goods to pay back rent and cost, and for the sake of exemption, or release from confinement, will agree to leave the rooms, and thus the prosecutor secures the first object of his unjust movement, and is saved also the cost of a defeat in court.

The number of persons committed on the charge of “disorderly houses,” is astonishing; especially when it is considered how many “disorderly houses” remain unvisited, and the occupants not arrested. But we must not forget the fact, that the movement of the magistrate in these cases is sanctioned, perhaps required, by the solemn oath of the complainant.