Part 3

Of this class of convicts, more or less, it is said, that “an experienced observer will readily detect many of them on the day of their reception, and a few weeks’ observation will generally suffice for the discovery of the remainder.” If we bring this remark to bear on the eight cases of last year, we shall be compelled to circumscribe its application considerably. Two of them “were decidedly insane when received.” Of the remaining six, “one a mulatto, had been once or oftener insane before imprisonment;” his mother had also been insane, and he was syphilitic. Two others were not of the class which we are considering, for it is expressly stated that they “had not imbecile minds,” though “both had received a fracture of the skull, and were thus doubly predisposed to insanity.” Of the three that are left, one “was not considered actually defective in mind,” and of course he would not have been put among the class “who are deficient in mental vigor to resist the enervating tendencies of the system.” Nevertheless, his mind “was of such a character, that shortly after his reception, it was predicted that he would go deranged before the expiration of his sentence.” What that “character” was we are not told, nor is it needful for our present purpose to know. Then of the other two it is expressly said, that they were “considered as presenting no striking mental peculiarity on admission, either of strength or weakness.” One of them was three years and one month in prison, before exhibiting any marks of mental derangement, and the other ten months. If we do not misunderstand the report then, not one of the last year’s insane cases answers to the description of that “certain class of convicts, who cannot be placed under the usual isolation, without the greatest risk of insanity supervening.”

Perhaps we construe the language of the report in this connection too rigidly, for in another section, the “mental deficiency” of many of these same persons “which an experienced observer will readily detect on the day of their reception, or a few weeks after,” is described as “so slight, as hardly to challenge casual observation or to prevent their following successfully the ordinary pursuits of life.” We think it would be very difficult to modify the discipline of a prison, so as to provide for such minute diversities of mental power among convicts. They will have to take their chance with the other rogues, we fear.

Although Dr. Given in one passage of his report speaks of “a modification to a certain extent of the Pennsylvania system,” and “of association in workshops,” and “of associated labor,” we are happy to find that the general tenor of the document sanctions no such view. On the contrary, free, vigorous and timely “out-of-door exercise,” which is perfectly compatible in any form and degree with the principle of our system, is clearly in his opinion, the grand panacea for prison-ills. The gardener and waggoner, at the Eastern State Penitentiary are accustomed to employ as assistants, such convicts as need exercise in the open air, and an officer is specially appointed to “attend invalid convicts, and give to them at least one hour daily of out-of-door exercise, combined with improving social intercourse.”

It is obvious that these precautionary measures may be adopted to any needful extent, without any violation of our cardinal principle. Indeed, we see no evidence in the report before us, that they have not been employed during the past year, to the full extent which the exigencies of the institution have required. Not a case is mentioned or hinted at, in which suffering has been endured, or danger incurred for want of them. Indeed from the description which the Doctor gives of the position and treatment of a convict in our Penitentiary, at the present time, we can scarcely conceive of a system of penal suffering being administered with more judgment, care and lenity. In speaking of a keeper’s interpretation of the nature and responsibility of his office, Dr. G. says: “Aware of the vast power which his official position affords for influencing the prisoner, for good or evil, his physical, his intellectual, and his moral character are subjected to close scrutiny; and the nature of his work, the amount exacted of him, the extent and character of his social intercourse are regulated accordingly. If, after due experience, it is found that the employment of the convict is not adapted to his strength or capacity, the fact is reported to the warden, and intelligent suggestions offered as to his future treatment. If the prisoner’s moral conduct proves perverse, he is subdued by kind remonstrance, when for similar breaches of discipline he would formerly have been punished; and if symptoms of insanity, or physical disease portend, the deepest interest is felt, and every possible exertion made to avert the threatened evil.”

We know not what more could be asked, if the idea of punishment is not to be entirely foregone.

Indeed, we cannot avoid the conviction that in one particular at least, a pernicious indulgence is granted; viz., the use of tobacco. Dr. G. anticipates “quite as much censure as approbation,” will be bestowed on this item of treatment, and he may think himself very fortunate, if the scales are so nearly equipoised as that. For ourselves, we cannot qualify our condemnation of the practice on every ground. So far as the Dr.’s argument rests on strength of habit, it would be equally cogent for the use of intoxicating liquors; and we must suppose he speaks ironically, when he refers to “legislative chambers, halls of justice, or even our pulpits,” as furnishing invariably safe precedents in moral conduct. Convict-life is, and of right ought to be a life of privation; and the wise disciplinarian takes advantage of this period to cross the prisoner’s vicious inclinations at every point, and thus connect the process of punishment with the process of reformation. Dr. G. has seen “a strong stubborn man beg for tobacco with tears in his eyes.” We have seen such a man beg, in like manner, for a drink of grog, or the means of escape from prison. But it is “the painfulness of this privation” which answers, in our prisons, the purpose which the douche, or the yoke, or the cat-o’-nine tails are supposed to answer in other prisons. It is suffering with profit, for it breaks up a most vicious habit, and it is suffering without degradation, too. Why should we throw away such an advantage?

But what shall we say to the other ground of apology for allowing tobacco to the prisoners, viz., for the cure of “dyspepsia and mental depressions, otherwise treated in vain?” In such a war, we must put Greek against Greek. In insane asylums, where physical and mental diseases are supposed to have the most skilful medical treatment, we are informed that the use of tobacco is strictly interdicted by the resident physician; and we notice by the return of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, that six of the cases of insanity received into that institution last year, are believed to have originated in the use of that narcotic! Nothing could show the prodigious power of the habit more strikingly than the remark of Dr. G., that “the fear of being deprived of it has produced a degree of order and discipline throughout the establishment, that the severest punishment could not effect.” We have seen, in a nursery of young rogues, a violent uproar against a parent or care-taker quieted at once by just giving a sugar plum, or a bit of gingerbread, which had been at first denied. How far such concessions to the vicious appetite of convicts, or to the unruly will of children promote sound discipline, is not a matter of doubt to observing minds. A firm maintenance of wholesome authority, or the discreet use of King Solomon’s specific for disorders of the temper, would perhaps add a new strain to the discordant music for the time being, but it would be likely to produce very agreeable harmony in the end.

The striking improvements which have been made in the hygienic arrangement of the Eastern State Penitentiary, and for which it is greatly indebted to the earnest and well directed efforts of Dr. G., cannot fail to impress every reader of the report. Without relaxing in any degree the radical principle of separation, or rendering the penal feature of the discipline any less severe, the moral and physical well being of the convicts has been greatly advanced, and the claims of the worst of them to kind and humane treatment have been recognised with a distinctness of which they are, for the most part, happily conscious. If we would give to an inquirer on the subject a succinct but impressive view of the advance which has been made in the improvement of our system of prison-discipline, we know of no document to which we would refer with more confidence than this report of Dr. Given.

ART. III.--JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, TRUANCY, &c.

In our last number, we commenced a notice of several interesting matters occurring in Boston and its vicinity, and falling within the range of our observation. The presentment of the Grand Jury of Suffolk County was under discussion, and we promised to return to it again when opportunity should allow, and this promise we now redeem.

The establishment of “an _intermediate reform school_ for young persons, who are committed for first offences, when there is an apparent opportunity for their reformation by the use of moral and intellectual discipline,” is strongly urged in the presentment. The Grand Jury have in view a plan, “where the mark of the penitentiary shall not be put upon the convicts, but where, by judicious management on the part of superintendent, and exemplary conduct on the part of those consigned to his charge--they whose misfortune it may be to stray from the paths of rectitude, could again be received into the bosom of society without reproach.”

To enforce their suggestions, they call into view “the large number of minors that have been brought before the tribunals of public justice within the six months last past,” and express their deep conviction that “if some plan were provided, at which neglected children could be made to pass their time, instead of upon the wharves, in the streets, around the doors of theatres, or in the market places,--say in some industrial school provided by the State,--juvenile delinquency would very much decrease.”

These are all very good notions for a Boston jury, or any other jury to entertain, but suppose we should transform all these jurymen into Legislators, and give them a seat in the House of Representatives; and suppose a proposition were submitted to enact a law, making it compulsory on all parents to give their children a certain amount of schooling every year, and in default thereof, authorizing and requiring the proper authorities to remove such children from the custody of the parents, for the purpose of schooling them. Would they then and there take the same view of the subject? Would no misgivings arise about the bearing which their advocacy of such a stringent law might have on their political prospects? Would they advance as directly and as boldly to the application of the remedy as they do to the exposure of the evil?

It is obvious from the language of the report, that the Suffolk Grand Jury have a much clearer idea of the disease than they have of the cure. The class of persons to whom they refer as “committed for first offences” are nevertheless “convicts,” and nothing can remove the “mark of the penitentiary” but an executive pardon. And whether there is “an apparent opportunity for their reformation,” is not an easy question to determine. When the distinction comes to be practically applied, it would be found very perplexing. Our Houses of Refuge are intended to receive those who have entered, or are just entering upon a course of life, which ordinarily ends in the penitentiary; and they have doubtless saved scores of youth from the convict’s infamous doom, and returned them to their families and to society, with every prospect of usefulness and respectability. And we had supposed that the State Reform School at Westborough, which has been so successfully conducted, was designed to answer exactly this end. The boys who are committed there, are generally sent for first offences, and the discipline is strictly reformatory. Does the report of the jury then contemplate an institution between the Reform School and the State Penitentiary, or between the Reform School and “the House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders,” at South Boston? If the former, what ends are expected to be answered, which the institution at Westborough fails to accomplish; and if the latter, what class of offenders would they find between those at Westborough and those at South Boston, for whose case neither of these establishments provides?

However obscure the intimations of the report may be on this point, they are very clear on another, viz., that juvenile delinquency would be greatly diminished if all idle, loitering, loafing children “about town” were put to good, industrial schools. It is not a whit more certain, that if the Cochituate pond were to dry up suddenly, Boston would have a far less generous supply of water than it has now. But how shall this abstraction from the streets and wharves, of the filthy, foul-mouthed, ragged urchins be brought about? When and where shall the industrial school be established? What shall be the nature of the discipline, and the length of the confinement? Shall the public support them, or shall contributions be levied on negligent parents? Such schools have been greatly prospered, we know, in some of the chief towns of England and Scotland; but the institutions of society and indeed its whole structure, will allow that to be done there, which would not be tolerated here. We must give our Boston friends credit, however, for a very wise and effective step towards the suppression of juvenile vice. We allude to the law for the correction of truancy, and we cannot more usefully occupy a page of our limited space than by transcribing one or two passages from a leading document on the subject. The views expressed are quite as appropriate to Philadelphia as to Boston.

As early as 1846, a report came from the school committee of the city, in which the mischief of truancy is represented as not only interfering greatly with the regular process of instruction, but as exerting a demoralising effect which can hardly be counteracted, and employs much of the time and energy of the masters in preserving the discipline which it assails. Nor is it an evil (says the report) which ends with the schools. If it did, our duty would still require of us to do whatever we can do for its suppression or diminution. But it is certain, that, from the juvenile depravity of which the truancy of the school is both a sign and a cause, grows a large part of the suffering and crime of society. It is rare to find in our prisons those who were well cared for as children, and trained in regular habits of useful industry. An active child can be kept out of evil only by giving him something good to do; and when idleness has thoroughly corrupted the earliest years of life, what can we expect from riper years, but a maturity of vice, greater as temptations become stronger, and opportunities for crime are enlarged?

In the worst cases, the truancy of the children, or their entire absence from school, is permitted by the parents, and sometimes caused by their desire to share in those wretched gains of debasing or dishonest pursuits, for which after-time will exact a fearful price.

If the law on the one hand, provides schools to which all the children of this city _may_ go, on the other it provides another institution to which certain children may be _made to go_. Here then are institutions for those who _will_, and for those who _will not_ be instructed; and under one or other of these classes all our children may be arranged. The 143d chapter of the Revised Statutes, Sect. 5th, enumerates among those who may be sent to the House of Correction, “stubborn children;” and the “Act concerning juvenile offenders in the City of Boston,” authorizes the City Council to establish a building for “the reception, instruction, employment and reformation of such juvenile offenders as are hereinafter named;” this building we have: and the third section of the same Act provides, “That any Justice or Judge of the said Courts, (the Supreme Court, Municipal Court, and Police Courts) on the application of the Mayor, or of any Aldermen of the City of Boston, or of any Director of the House of Industry, or House of Reformation, or of any Overseer of the Poor, of said City, shall have power to sentence to said house of employment and reformation, all children who live an idle and dissolute life, whose parents are dead, or if living, from drunkenness, or other vices, neglect to provide any suitable employment, or exercise any salutary control over said children.” And the sixth section provides that any child committed to the House of Correction, may be transferred to the House of Employment and Reformation.”

It would seem, therefore, that the framers of the laws have done enough, if they who are entrusted with the execution of the laws do their duty.

These statements and views were not without their effect, though measures of reform were not matured until 1850, when a law was past, which we copy entire as the shortest method of presenting the whole matter to the view of our readers.

“AN ACT CONCERNING TRUANT CHILDREN AND ABSENTEES FROM SCHOOL.”

1. Each of the several cities and towns in this Commonwealth, is authorized and empowered to make all needful provisions and arrangements concerning habitual truants and children not attending school, without any regular and lawful occupation, growing up in ignorance, between the ages of six and fifteen years; and also, all such ordinances and by-laws respecting such children, as shall be deemed most conducive to their welfare, and the good order of such city or town; and there shall be annexed to such ordinances, suitable penalties, not exceeding for any one breach, a fine of twenty dollars: _provided_, that said ordinances and by-laws shall be approved by the Court of Common Pleas for the county, and shall not be repugnant to laws of the commonwealth.

2. The several cities and towns, availing themselves of the provisions of this act, shall appoint, at the annual meetings of said towns, or annually by the mayor and aldermen of said cities, three or more persons, who alone shall be authorized to make the complaints, in every case of violation of said ordinances or by-laws, to the justice of the peace, or other judicial officer, who, by said ordinances, shall have jurisdiction in the matter, which persons, thus appointed, shall have authority to carry into execution the judgments of said justices of the peace, or other judicial officer.

3. The said justices of the peace, or other judicial officers, shall, in all cases, at their discretion, in place of the fine aforesaid, be authorized to order children, proved before them to be growing up in truancy, and without the benefit of the education provided for them by law, to be placed, for such periods of time as they may judge expedient, in such institution of instruction or house of reformation, or other suitable situation, as may be assigned or provided for the purpose, under the authority conveyed by the first section, in each city or town availing itself of the powers herein granted.

ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF BOSTON.

_Sect. 1._ The city of Boston hereby adopts the two hundred and ninety-fourth chapter of the laws of the commonwealth, for the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty, entitled “an act concerning truant children and absentees from school,” and avails itself of the provisions of the same.

_Sect. 2._ Any of the persons described in the first section of said act, upon conviction of any offence therein described, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty dollars; and the senior justice, by appointment of the police court, shall have jurisdiction of the offences set forth in said act.

_Sect. 3._ The house for the employment and reformation of juvenile offenders, is hereby assigned and provided as the institution of instruction, house of reformation, or suitable situation, mentioned in the third section of said act.

We understand that this wholesome law was put in active operation at once in the city of Boston and in the adjoining town of Roxbury, and that a faithful execution of it bids fair to correct the hideous public nuisance of truant children. We wish it were practicable to secure similar legislation in our city. No indolent, thoughtless farmer ever stood on the borders of his field, and witnessed the broad-cast dispersion of Canada thistle-down over every part of it, with more composure than our lawmakers and magistracy look upon the spread of juvenile corruption in Philadelphia. We say this not without a grateful sense of the late liberality of the legislature in granting $60,000 towards the erection of a new Refuge in Philadelphia; nor without a just appreciation of the results of the labours of that excellent institution; nor without taking into view the various agencies designed to accomplish similar objects. But upon the mass of juvenile waywardness and depravity, they seem scarcely to have made a perceptible impression. The accumulation of the material out of which convicts are made is not sensibly checked. The sources of this corruption have been laid open to view in the reports of our Houses of Refuge, our Magdalen Asylums and police reports, but they remain as numerous and as prolific as ever. Corrupt places of amusement are thronged by boys and girls. Our eligible schools are open to them in vain. The hawking of newspapers, occasional jobs at the steamboat wharves or depots and chance-errands in the market-place, afford them means of vicious indulgence; and the regular service of an apprenticeship to some useful business, with the wholesome restraints which were formerly involved in this relation, are too irksome for their impatient spirits. Boys and girls of twelve or fifteen years of age, in a majority of cases, choose their own pursuits, receive the whole or a part of their earnings, to be expended at their pleasure; and with these elements of independence it is not difficult to connect a contempt for all authority, parental and magisterial, and this soon breaks up the foundations of society. Then there is that still unabated nuisance of young girls going about with fruit and candy; and by their very manner of life exciting, if not soliciting heartless wretches to make them their frequent or future prey. Is our community doomed to stand quietly by and see these streams of social corruption rising and swelling? Is there no arm long enough and strong enough to reach the fountain and check, if not suppress, its issues?

We have given so much space to this topic of the report, that we must be satisfied with but a brief notice of the rest.

The State Prison at Charlestown, of which _Henry K. Frothingham_ is warden, contains 476 prisoners, one-third of whom are foreigners. Six deaths occurred during the year, and the average number on the sick list was six. Libraries are highly commended as a means of moral culture, and it is recommended that they be furnished at the expense of the Commonwealth, not only to the State prison, but to county gaols and houses of correction.