GIFT OF The Development of Aj!ni$ajiqaii Prisons and Prison Customs 1776—1845 With Special Reference to Early Institutions in the State of New York By O. F. LEWIS. PLD. Late General Secretary American Prison Association and the Prison Association of New York Published by the Prison Association of New York Hrrr9H 4^ ALBANY J. B. LTON COMPANT, PRINTERS 1922 FOREWORD Dr. Orlando F. Lewis, the author of this book, spent some five years in gathering material for it. He died before it was completed, and, therefore, was unable to make a final revision of the manu- script, or to complete one or two of the chapters, which unfortu- nately are left in an unfinished state. The book represents an earn- est scholarly effort on the part of a man unusually well qualified to prepare such a history. For some twelve years before his untimely death. Dr. Lewis was the General Secretary of the Prison Association of New York. He brought to the discharge of his duties in that position exceptional qualifications, the product of unusual training. After graduation at Tufts College in 1895, he taught in that institution for about two years, earning the degree of Master of Arts. For three years afterwards, he pursued his studies abroad at the University of Munich and at the Sorbonne, in Paris, thus qualifying for the degree of Ph. D., which was conferred upon him by the University of Pennsylvania in 1900. For the next five years, he was Professor of Modern Languages at the University of Maine. In 1905, he accepted appointment with the Charity Organization Society in the City of New York, and in that position he was brought into direct contact with the varied problems of delinquency and offenders against the law and the manifold variety of organized eleemosynary and benevolent effort in the metropolitan region of New York. In that field, he acquired an experience which peculiarly fitted him for the service of the Prison Association, l)y which he was chosen General Secretary in 1910. His services in that capacity were characterized by rare address, great devotion, intelligent and sympathetic effort. Under his direction, the Asso- ciation during that period fully maintained its traditions of helpf rd service to the cause for which it exists, and its present high position in that field in no small measure is due to Dr. Lewis' character and labors. The Association feels that this volume will constitute the best lasting memorial to Dr. Lewis' life and work. He was <;ut off in the prime of his life, and when his capacity for intelligent labor was very high. Some comprehension of his labors in the £eld of penology may be derived from a reading of the ensuing pages. George W. Wickersham, Chairman^ Executive Committee of the Prison Association of New York, 506S1J1 TABLE OF CONTENTS. Chapter I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. Page Foreword 3 The Beginnings of American Prison Eeform 7 Planning a Prison System , 16 The Walnut Street Prison 25 Early European Influences "83 The Breakdown 38 Newgate Prison in New York 43 Newgate of Connecticut 64 The Massachusetts State Prison 68 The Development of the Auburn System 77 The Early Years of Mount Pleasant Prison (Sing Sing) 107 The Western and the Eastern Penitentiaries of Pennsylvania 118 The Early Development of Prison Labor in New York 130 Other Early Prisons in New England 147 Maine New Hampshire Vermont The Massachusetts State Prison 158 Connecticut 175 New Jersey 189 Maryland 204 Virginia 210 The Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania 217 Kentucky 253 Other Early American Prisons 260 Ohio Washington, D. C. Georgia Tennessee County Jails 269 The Rev. Louis Dwight 289 The Early Juvenile Reformatories, 1824-1844 293 The State of Prisons in 1845 323 Bibliography 347 CHAPTER 1 THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN PRISON REFORM The traveler who passes Ossining, New York, upon the train can hardly fail to note the gray, bastile-like prison of Sing Sing, loom- ing like a monolith beside the railroad track. Its many small windows, that look like loop-holes ; its cheerless granite walls, worn by the elements during an entire century ; its extraordinary archi- tectural construction, and its notorious history as a place of punish- ment, all lead the mind of the traveler to ponder upon the prison as a necessary institution in our American life. But Sing Sing is passing. Built in 1825, b y 1925 it will un- doubtedly have been superseded by the most modern, most humane and most scientific institution for the treatment of delinquents yet projected upon the North American continent. A receiving and classification prison is now under construction, upon the hill above the old prison. To this new prison will come all felons sentenced to the State prisons of New York. From it the newcomers will be sent, after the most careful study of their individual treatment- needs, to the institutions in which they may find the best and most permanent curative and reformatory treatment. A new day has indeed arrived in American penological methods. Throughout the last half century, with rapidly increasing momen- tum, corrective social agencies other than the prison have developed in the constant and always necessary battle of society against criDie. The reformatory movement, typified by the founding of Elmira Reformatory in the seventies of the nineteenth century; the development of the so-called indeterminate sentence ; the growth of the application of parole after imprisonment; the remarkable rise of probation, as a form of substitute for the prison term ; the marvellous spread of juvenile courts; the growth of farm prisons and specialized institutions; the organization of Big Brother and Big Sister work, enlisting the philanthropic and devoted services of volunteers ; the introduction into penal and reformatory institu- tions of the scientific minds of the psychologist and the psychiatrist, whereby methods of treatment of inmates have become materially changed ; and the nation-wide attention given in most recent years to the institutional problems of feeblemindedness and diminished responsibility — all these factors in so-called *^ prison reform'* have, as it were, been cumulatively reducing the original functions and methods of the American prison to something quite different. And all of these social efforts to humanize, and to make more just, the treatment by society of the prison inmate have brought increased hope of success into the prison problem. But how did the American prison come to be what, for a century, it has been — a highly individual, unique, and not infrequently notorious institution ? What were its chief origins ? Who played a part in devising this extraordinary social instrument of alleged 171 ^^ • • .' :'' ;"".''»< •' I?iS'i:o]feY; OF American Prisons justice? How came it, that there solidified in the midst of our American civilization this social mechanism of punishment that, with few deviations, from type, rose in each State of the Union during the early nineteenth century, or sprang into being shortly after Statehood was achieved ? Upon what models rose these early prisons? From what minds, and because of what philosophies of justice and of punishment, came the origins of American penal institutions ? It is exactly these origins that have been largely veiled or hidden to the student of prison reform. There has been much assumption on the part of writers relative to our earliest prisons. The so-called ''Auburn" and ''Pennsylvania" prison systems, each springing up in the third decade of the nineteenth century, have been rather generally assumed to be the chief sources of our traditional prison methods. Exceedingly little attention has been given to still ear- lier efforts in the first American States to deal institutionally with the problems of crime. Yet there lies back there, beginning with the birth of the Ameri- can republic, and extending through a period of a half -century, a development of penal philosophies and of accompanying institu- tions that in many respects is not only of great historical interest, but also of highest significance in the development of our American systems of dealing with offenders. The writer has been led to explore this region because of the absence of available material in readily accessible form. The results of this exploration he now presents in this volume, emphasizing however with frankness that this is but an excursion into a little known land, and not a compre- hensive survey and charting of the entire territory. There has been a certain zest in this pioneering exploration of the period between 1776 and 1845. If what the writer may be able to present shall add to and clarify our general knowledge of our earlier prison methods, and explain much that is still found as survivals of earliest methods, the intermittent study of several years will be more than repaid. The birth of the American republic and the birth of an organized prison system in this country occurred practically simultaneously. It was actually in the first year of American independence, 1776, that an early act of the newly-formed State of Pennsylvania provided, in its constitution, that the Legislature ** proceed, as soon as might be, to the reform of the penal laws, and invent punishments less sanguinary, and better proportioned to the various degrees of criminality.' ' ^ We shall constantly see the relatively prominent and progressive position of Pennsylvania in the development of more humane meth- ods of dealing with criminals. The colonial period of American history had been marked by the prevalence of corporal and of capital punishment. Even at the time of the emancipation of the Colonies from British domination, the punitive methods of the Old Country prevailed in the new world. A disti nguished Quaker 1 Turnbuirs visit to the Philadelphia Prison, p. 8. History of American Prisons 9 philanthropist, Thomas Eddy, living in New York city at the period of the beginnings of American independence, wrote of the age: **The tears of the sympathetic, and the voice of the benevolent, had made but slow progress against the apathy of the great mass of mankind, and the vindictive spirit of a few, who believe, or profess to believe, that the world should be governed by a rod of iron. The hearts of the people were made callous by the sight of stocks,- whipping posts, pillories in every shire town or considerable village. Flagellation with the cat-o'-nine tails, burning in the hand or forehead with a hot iron, cropping the ears of prisoners in the pillory, were all common sights to the youngest as well as the oldest portion of the community.' ' ^ The Colonial period of our American history was characterized by a free employment of capital punishment for offenses that to-day are followed by no such treatment. Even at the close of the eighteenth century, the English penal code still retained the death penalty for 160 offenses. And the policy of England had been to superimpose upon the Colonies her own methods of punishment. Methods of punishment, once established and practiced, tend / by their very existence and continuance to justify themselves. When Thomas Mott Osborne campaigned at Auburn Prison in 1913 and 1914 against ''medieval prison methods," both in housing prisoners and in their daily routine, he was combatting many traditional customs handed down by almost a century of practice from the early ''Auburn System." To-day the whipping post is still used in Delaware, and its very presence leads not only to its justification by a portion of the population of that State, but gives opportunity to residents of other States to argue, from its presence, the necessity of severer punishments in their own States. Moreover, tradition ultimately often gives sanction to that which at first seemed unjustified, or improper, or only an emergency measure. Edward Livingston, the noted American jurist, wrote that in this manner **The English nation have submitted to the legislation of its courts, and seen their fellow subjects hanged for constructive felonies; quartered for constructive treasons; and roasted alive for constructive heresies, with a pa- tience that would be astonishing, even if their written laws had sanctioned the butchery. ' ' ' The gradual emancipation of the Colonies, and later of the States, from the sanguinary and horrible tyranny of mutilation of offenders, branding, ear-cropping, flogging, and the like, came about through the growing realization of the leaders in social and political life of the communities that the barbarous and debasing physical punishments failed to check crime or solve the problems of its reduction. If such realization seemed to be of slow growth, one has but to contemplate the present reactionary attitude toward the treatment of the offender. Throughout the land there is in this year (1921) a marked trend toward far greater severity of pun- ishment for crime, and a growing inclination to attribute the « Life of Thos. Eddy, p. 56. •Livingston, Vol. 1, p. 13. 10 History of American Prisons failure to reduce crime to excessive leniency of judicial and institu- tional treatment of criminals and other offenders. Throughout the history of penal treatment we find the pendulum swinging from extremes of opinion, and often of treatment. It was recognized by William Bradford, a Quaker of Philadel- phia, who became in 1794 the Attorney General of the United States, that *'on no subject has government in different parts of the world discovered more indolence and inattention than in the construction or reform of the penal code. Legislators feel themselves elevated above the commission of crimes which the laws prescribed, and they have too little personal interest in a system of punishments to be critically exact in retaining its severity. The degraded class of men, who are the victims of the laws, are thrown at a distance that obscures their sufferings, and blunts the sensibilities of the legislator. Hence, sanguinary punishments, contrived in despotic and barbarous ages, have been continued when the progress of science, freedom and morals renders them unnecessary and mischievous ; and laws, the offspring of a corrupted monarchy, are fostered in the bosom of a youthful republic. ' ' ^ We turn naturally, not only to the State and earlier Colony of Pennsylvania, but of course also to William Penn, to discover early enlightened efforts to mitigate the severities of the criminal code, and to introduce into existing punitive methods the qualities of greater mercy. When William Penn, arriving in the Delaware River in 1682 from England, with a charter from Charles the Second, founded the province of Pennsylvania, he brought from the British monarch permission to establish a penal code of most excep- tional mildness, which retained the death penalty only in cases of homicide,* and which allowed the substitution of imprisonment at hard labor for former bloody punishments. William Bradford wrote, a hundred years afterwards, of this great forerunner of the Quaker humanitarianism : "The founder of the province of Pennsylvania was a philosopher whose elevated mind rose above the errors and prejudices of his age, like a mountain, whose summit is enlightened by the first beams of the sun, while the plains are still covered with mists and darkness. ' ' "^ Penn's outstanding purpose in the treatment of criminals and offenders was clemency and, when possible, rehabilitation. He had been in prison. He had been a martyr. He had endured six months of the promiscuous horrors of Newgate in London, because he had refused to take an oath, which was an act contrary to his religious convictions. In a tour of Holland, he had inspected the Dutch workhouses, which even in those earliest times in rational institutional management were well-developed institutions for the amendment of lawbreakers through compulsory labor. He became deeply impressed with the industrial features of these workhouses, and when he came to America, he brought the purpose with him of substituting the prison for the gallows, labor for bloody punish- ments, and workshops for the idleness and debauchery of the jail yard J * Gray, F. C. Prison Discipline in America. Boston, 1847, or Bradford, p. 16. » Bradford, p. 14. •Bradford, p. 5. ^ ^ , ,r , .. no 'Krohne. Geschichte des Gefangniawesens, Vol. 1, p. 92. History of American Prisons 11 The temptation of the student of prison history is, constantly, to contrast the dim past with the vivid present. To-day, in the length and breadth of our land, idleness, promiscuity, and individual demoralization of the individual are salient characteristics of the county jails of the United States. Over two hundred years after Penn, we still fight for workshops, and compulsory labor, and the abolition of the herding of human beings in our jails and local places of correction. Penn's penal philosophy is applicable to-day — and he towers in history as one of the great reformers in the penal field — one whose work soon was dissipated in the sands of inertia, reaction and traditional adherence to man's penal inhumanity to man. Yet, at the time, despite the policy of Great Britain to keep the laws of the Colonies in unison with the Mother Country's laws, and to overwhelm an infant country with a mass of sanguinary laws, Penn, in his Frame of Government, abolished tortures and bloody punishments, and substituted therefor the penalties of im- prisonment at hard labor, stripes (i. e., flogging), fines and for- feitures. As Bradford put it, his penal code was brief but complete, ** animated by the pure spirit of philanthropy. Punishments were calculated to tie up the hands of the criminal, to reform, to repair the wrongs of the injured party, and to hold up an object to terror sufficient to check a people.'" A reform is to be judged, of course, not by what to-day would be considered adequate as the substitute for an evil, but in the light of its relative progressiveness as a substitute for existing conditions, in an existing state of public opinion and of prevailing customs. William Penn substituted for extreme penalties physical punishments that to-day would be turned from in horror by the most enlightened minds. With the purpose of modifying so far as possible the vindictive and retaliatory features of then existing laws, punitive measures were to be employed for the reformation of the offender, and not for his extermination. Reparation of wrongs was instituted in favor of the injured party, and a chief object of his code was the deterrence from crime of those who might be tempted, in the absence of severe treatment, to commit crime. To cite several specific illustrations : He provided that all pris- oners should be bailable on sufficient securities, thus enabling the miserable offender, when possible, to avoid the long and debauching imprisonment, prior to trial, in the local jail or institution. An exception to admission to bail was such a capital crime as seemed to bear its own evident proof, or in which the presumption was great. To prevent false imprisonment, all persons wrongfully imprisoned or prosecuted at law were to recover double damages against the informer or prosecutor. All prisons were to be free as to fees, food and lodging, thus eliminating the extortion of jailers.* To make crime still more unattractive, all lands and goods of felons should be liable to make satisfaction to the parties wronged, to •Bradford, p. 15. • Carson, H. L. " Wm. Penn as a Lawgiver." Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biography, Vol. 30. 12 History of American Prisons the limit of twice the value; and for want of lands or goods, the felons should be bondmen, to work in the common prison or work- house until the injured party was satisfied. These features were substantially enacted in the Great Law of Pennsylvania in 1682.^^ Penn provided also for a new institution that was to supersede in large measure the public summary punish- ments of the past, namely, the stocks, the pillory, the branding iron, and the gallows. In short, the counties were each to ''build a sufficient house, at least twenty feet square, for restraint, correction, labor and punishment of all such persons as shall be thereunto committed by law. ' ' " The basic purpose of these new institutions was that law-breakers should be made to work, and to learn the habits of labor. In Penn's project of his code of laws, it was expressly declared that *'all prisons shall be workhouses for felons, vagrants, and loose and idle persons. ' ' The Great Law of 1682 contained a similar provision, the stock, according to George W. Smith in 1829, upon which all subsequent legislation in Pennsylvania was grafted. From the year 1682 to 1717, labor formed an invariable part of the punishments of those sentenced to the prisons of Pennsylvania.^^ In our present day, much stress is laid upon ''prevention" as the most constructive method of checking and reducing delinquency. We emphasize the far-reaching influences of the church, the school and the home as prime factors in maintaining good conduct among the young. We advocate the establishment and support of boys' clubs, girls' clubs, social centers, the Scout movement, settlements, and the like. We repeat the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in the treatment of crime. But Penn's mind, over two centuries ago, had traveled also along the practical road of prevention. He aimed by law to provide for the prevention of crime among the young, by making it mandatory that all chil- dren of the age of twelve years should be taught some useful trade or skill, * * to the end that none might be idle, but that the poor might work to live, and that the rich, if they became poor, might not want. ' ' And, in order that the citizens of Pennsylvania while still young might learn the laws, it was provided that the laws should be studied as a text-book in the common schools. However, the principles underlying Penn's effort for the trans- formation of the penal practice of the time were much too far in advance of their time to receive the sanction of Queen Anne, who succeeded Charles the Second.^^ The laws were repealed by the Queen in council, only to be re-enacted by the Province of Pennsyl- vania, where they continued in force until the death of Penn in 1718. It was written that during this period of thirty-five years, it did not appear that Pennsylvania was the theatre of more atrocious crimes than other Colonies.^^ 10 Charter to Wm. Penn, and Laws of Prov. of Pa., p. 100. 11 Charter to Wm. Penn, p. 1139. ^ „, ^ ,. ^ ,^ ^ . . 12 Geo W. Smith, in R. Vaux. Brief Sketch of the Ongms, etc., p. 28. isVaux. Roberts' Notices, etc. Phila., 1826. "Bradford, p. 16. History of American Prisons 13 The sanguinary laws, restored in 1718, continued in force until the period of the American Revolution.^^ During this time the following offenses were again capital crimes : High treason; petty treason; murder; burglary; rape; sodomy; buggery; malicious maiming; manslaughter by stabbing; witchcraft by conjuration; arson; and every other felony was made capital in the case of a second conviction.^® Later, there was added counterfeiting. All these crimes, with the possible exception of witchcraft, were capital at the time of the Revolution.^* We come to the first year of American independence, 1776. It was in this year that in Philadelphia the first prison reform society of America or Europe^^ was founded — ^the ''Philadelphia Society for Assisting Distressed Prisoners. ' ' The name of the organization was significant. Emphasis was laid upon the succoring of the unfortunates in prison. The society was the result of private initia- tive. The membership was small, and the life of the society was extremely brief, for after some nineteen months the British entered Philadelphia, and took possession, among other things, of the local jail.^^ However, after the Revolution, the society was revived on May 8th, 1787, at the German Schoolhouse on Cherry street, by the surviving members of the first society. It was now called ''The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Pris- ons. " " As the Pennsylvania Prison Society this society still exists, and plays an influential role in the prison reform field of Pennsyl- vania. Its last annual meeting was the one hundred and thirty- third. The new title of the reorganized society of 1787 indicated that the attention of the members was now to be directed in greater measure toward the miserable physical and social conditions of the public jails. The principal duties of the society were, to visit the public prisons at least once every week, through members of its managing committee; to inquire into the circumstances of persons confined therein ; to report abuses discovered, and to examine into the influence of confinement or punishment upon the morals of society.^^ The purposes of the newly-formed society were, according to Caleb Lownes, somewhat different. Founded mainly because of the gross excesses arising from the employment of prisoners from the jail at labor upon the public streets — which we shall shortly describe — the new society appointed a committee of six members i*Vaux, p. 7. Notices. " Smith, G. W. " Defense of the Pa. System of Solitary Confinement." Quoted by Vaux, Richard, in " Origin and History," etc., p. 29. "Vaux, p. 8ff. « Bradford, p. 19. i» Julius. " Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 122. » Bradford, p. 16. 21 Vaux, pp. 8ff. 14 History of American Prisons to visit the prison, to furnish bread when necessary, clothe the naked, accommodate differences, discharge those confined for small debts, and generally to mitigate the sufferings of prisoners. We should, at this point, pause to recognize clearly the remark- able and ever-active interest and work of the Society of Friends,, commonly called Quakers, in prison reform. It would have been a far different and more backward America, penologically, had it not been for the activity and initiative of the Quakers. ' Theirs^ was the great service of devising, in large measure, the first Ameri- can State prison, on Walnut street, which we shall shortly describe. Theirs was the leavening philanthropic influence in Pennsylvania during the period under discussion. And, indeed, theirs is still, in 1921, a persistent, sober, constructive interest and activity in penological matters. To early prisons they contributed wardens^ of high integrity. They philosophized upon the criminological problems of the day. They conditioned in large measure, not as^ a sect, but as individuals, the development of the earlier American prisons, and their daily routine. Particularly in Pennsylvania and in New York were the Quakers persistent in efforts to abolish the death penalty and sanguinary punishments, to improve the conditions of prisons, and, wherever possible, to achieve the reformation of the inmate. We cite at this point the noteworthy description by Edward Livingston (1822) of the participation of the Quakers in public affairs: ** Happily for Pennsylvania, and perhaps for the world, she had enlightened men to frame her penal laws; and happier still, she had a class of citizens admirably calculated to execute them with the zeal of enthusiasm. ^The founder of that State, and his first associates, belonged to a sect which fitted them, by its principles, and by the habits and pursuits which it created and prescribed, to be the agents of a reform in jurisprudence similar to that which they adopted, and perhaps carried to excess, in religion. Their descendents, with less of that enthusiasm which in their ancestors was exalted by persecution, had all the active benevolence and Christian charity necessary to prompt, and the perseverance and unwearied industry to support, their exertions. ''Abstracted by their tenets from the pleasures which occupy so large a portion of life among other sects; equally excluded from other pursuits in which so many find occupation; freed from the vexations of mutual litigation by submitting every difference to the umpirage of the elders, and from the tyranny of fashion by an independent contempt for its rules, the modern Quakers devote all the time which others waste in dissipation, or employ in intriguing for public employment, to the direction of charitable institutions, and that surplus wealth which others dissipate in frivolous pursuits, to the cause of humanity. ''In every society for promoting education, for instructing or supporting the poor, for relieving the distresses of prisoners, for suppressing vice and immorality, they are active and zealous members; and they indemnify them- selves for the loss of the honors and the pleasures of the world by the highest of all honors, the purest of all pleasures, that of doing good. ' ' '^ The Quakers held that the prevention of crime was the sole end of punishment, a most advanced attitude for the time. They held further that every punishment that was not absolutely necessary to- 23 Works of Edward Livingston, Vol. I. p, 508 History of American Prisons 15 that end was a cruel and tyrannical act. Every penalty should be apportioned to the offense.^^ Punishment should not be such as to plunge the criminal still deeper into destruction. The prison should make better instead of worse. With these extremely advanced penological idejas, the Quakers, strongly represented in the newly-formed prison reform society of Philadelphia, faced the practical problem of bettering the condi- tions of public prisoners, and of establishing a humane and reason- able system of prison treatment. » Bradford, p. 3. CHAPTER II PLANNING A PRISON SYSTEM In 1786, the Pennsylvania Legislature, influenced largely by the penal principles of the Quakers, reduced materially once more the extent of the application of the death penalty, reserving now the infliction of capital punishment only for treason, murder, rape and arson,^ while other offenses were to be punished by whipping, imprisonment, and by hard labor in public. If, now, the gallows were to be less frequently used, what should take the gallows' place? Thus was the practical problem of a suitable place and mode of imprisonment forced upon the advocates of a more lenient treatment of criminals. The Quakers were thus obligated to devise a prison system, or "prison discipline," as it was more commonly called. They faced a situation almost without precedents. The influence of the great English prison investigator and reformer, John How- ard, was but beginning to reach across the Atlantic. There were no prison structures in other States that might serve as examples to imitate, or to copy in part. To be sure, jails had long existed in the American Colonies, because there had to be places in which to lock people up, but they were local institutions, used in general either for brief detention or for short terms of imprisonment. Ob- viously, so long as physical punishments in the open, before the public, were common forms of penalty, or so long as the execution of the criminal was frequent, or at least provided in the laws with frequency, the use of the prison as a place of permanent punish- ment, or of actual reformation, was hardly in the contemplation of the people. And the jails were, moreover, the centers of pro- miscuous herding of prisoners of all descriptions. The Quakers were confronted with just such a condition, in the existence of the old jail at the corner of Third and High streets. This prison was all that Howard could have described or Hogarth depicted. It was the *' scene of promiscuous and unrestricted inter- course, and of universal riot and debauchery. " ^ There was no separation of prisoners by sex. Keepers locked up the male and female prisoners in the same rooms at night. When the Philadel- phia Society had successfully memorialized the Legislature, and that body had enacted a law for the separation of sexes in this jail, the number of female prisoners soon averaged four or five, instead of between thirty and forty.® This Philadelphia jail was a typical catch-all of miserable persons, criminals, lesser offenders, debtors and others. In this building, the young and old, the white and the colored, the depraved and 1 Gray. Prison Discp. in America. aVaux, p. 8ff. 8 Vaux, p. 24. [16] History of American Prisons 17 the relatively innocent were indiscriminately herded. Liquor was freely sold at a bar, kept by one of the prison officers. Jail fees were required even of those who had been tried and acquitted. From the windows of the jail the inmates were wont to push out bags and baskets, imploring alms from the passers-by, and roundly reviling them if they refused to give.* The prison was of the kind that Penn, a century earlier, had sought to supplant by his pro- vision of county workhouses. The first individual, unconnected with the administration of the criminal laws, who appears to have given attention to the inhabit- ants of the jail, was Richard Wistar, who died in 1781 at the age of 54, and who lived in that neighborhood. Before the Revolution he was in the habit of causing wholesome soup, prepared in his own dwelling, to be distributed among the prisoners.^ One of the oldest of the evils of the prison was, according to Caleb Lownes, the gaol fees. ** Guilty or innocent, able or unable, strip or pay, was the first salutation." An effort to remedy conditions by a form of compulsory labor was attempted by the Legislature of 1786. The employment of prisoners upon the public roads of the city of Philadelphia was made mandatory. The prisoners should meet the expenses of their keep through their labor. That prisoners can be employed on roads, and in general in the open air, outside the limits of prisons, is in the year 1921 an estab- lished fact, so fully accepted to-day as to be no longer debatable. In gangs and squads, without the wearing of stripes, and often actually without guards, such squads of prisoners can be found in many parts of the United States. Road work in northern States is often regarded by the prisoners as a great privilege, in com- parison with work within the institution, and ** honor camps" are frequently filled with convicts who thus labor, generally in full view of the passers-by. Yet this condition has been arrived at only gradually, and after many trials. This early experiment on the roads of Philadelphia bore deplorable results. The public of the period 1786 to 1790, feared these malefactors, thus employed in public places, and the jail authorities, on their side, feared that the convicts would escape. Consequently, the prisoners thus working were weighted down with iron collars and chains, and they dragged these clankingly as they worked.^ They were garbed in an ' ' infamous dress, ' ' ^ and their heads were shaved, that they might be easily indentified if they should run away. In short, they were public exhibitions of a wild human animal, called a convict, restrained by chains and arms in the hands of the guards from escaping to prey further upon society. The picture is of intense interest in comparison with present road-work methods in convict camps. To-day the prisoners labor, in northern States, without ball and chain. They enjoy unre- * Gray. Prison Discp. in America. "Vaux, p. 8. ' Crawford. 8 Vaux, p. 21. 18 History of American Prisons strict ed freedom of motion. The stripes are almost entirely gone in northern States. There is no ''infamous dress," but a gray- uniform of unobjectionable pattern and hue. The workers from the prison are not thus designated as pariahs and outcasts, and one of the strong temptations to escape — namely, the avoidance of such pitiless pillorying in conspicuous places before the eye of the public — has been done away with. In southern States the chain and the striped suit are still more or less customary. In the Philadelphia of 1786-1790, the results were inevitable. "The drunkenness, profanity and indecencies of the prisoners on the streets were in the minds of almost all of the citizens," wrote Caleb Lownes, one of the leading Quaker prison reformers of the period.* And, said Lownes : "The number of criminals increased to such a degree as to alarm the com- munity with fears. The keepers (on the streets) were armed with swords, blunderbusses and other weapons of destruction. The prisoners were secured by iron collars, and chains, fixed to bombshells . . . The old and hard- ened offenders were daily in the practice of begging and insulting the inhabitants, collecting crowds of idle boys, and holding with them the most indecent and improper conversations."" It is often asked why a method that, when tried at one time, proves successful, could not have been tried and used successfully long before. Road-w^ork is a case in point. To-day, the general attitude of the public is to give the prisoner a "square deal" and another chance prepares, so to speak, an environment for his work that is favorable. To-day, also, the use of the indeterminate sen- tence makes good work and good behavior an inducement to the parole board to lessen the period of imprisonment. Honor systems have instituted a sense of responsibility among prisoners who enjoy the greater privileges of that system. Neighborhoods in which prisoners work on roads have discovered the "humanness" of prisoners. The idea of the innate or irremediable depravity of the convict is passing away. In short, both prison and public to-day give the prisoner a chance to make good. The attitude of the Philadelphia public was an admixture of terror, of belief in the total depravity of the convict, and of con- viction that he had few or no common characteristics with the "good," that is, those not in prison. As we shall see later, the line of cleavage between the good and the bad was sharp, and the jail or prison was one of the most vivid symbols of the great "bad- ness" of the people imprisoned therein. The old prison above cited in Philadelphia was an example of this public attitude of mind. A clergyman, William Rogers, announced in this period that he in- tended upon a certain Sunday to hold a divine service for all the prisoners. The jailer, fearful of the loss of some of his perquisites and "vested interests," should the conditions within the jail be- i?ome too publicly known, claimed the danger to the minister to be such that on the appointed Sabbath the jailer introduced a •Account ef Alterations and Present State of the Penal Laws of Pa., etc, Phila., » Lownes. Acct. of Alterations, etc., p. 84. 17S3. History of American Prisons 19 cannon into the jail, which he installed in front of the pulpit, pointing it at the herded convicts, and stationed beside it a man with a lighted torch, so that at the first sign of outbreak among the prisoners they might be shot down.^° But the service went on to completion, nevertheless. It is said that this service was the first that had ever been held before all the prisoners in Philadelphia at one time.^^' ^^ We turn now to an incident that will be recognized by the student of penology and criminology in this country as little short of amazing. There are in the biological field what are called ' ' sports, * ' or unexpected deviations from type, occurring not in systematic sequence, or in frequent succession, but intermittently, and appar- ently unrelated to what has gone before. There occurred, in an address given by Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, at the home of Benjamin Franklin in that city in March, 1787, a ''sport" among theories of penal administration. We present here the theories of Dr. Rush at some length, because in many ways his suggested system of prison administration echoed in that far-off time many of the principles that even to-day are considered advanced in the penological field. And, so far as the writer has been able to discern, there were no clear results from Dr. Rush's paper, nor did the eminent physician in later life take a specially active part in penal philanthropy. Doctor Rush presented a lengthy paper upon the effects of public punishments upon criminals and upon society. In his opinion, as we summarize it from his article, buried in a series of miscel- laneous papers on subjects other than prisons, the design of the punishment of criminals was threefold: 1. To reform the person who suffers punishment. 2. To prevent the perpetration of crimes, by exciting terror in the minds of spectators. 3. To remove those persons from society who have manifested by their tempers and crimes, that they are unfit to live in society. In short, Doctor Rush has expressed practically the penological program of the present day, for he maintained that the prison must serve three purposes : Reformation, the deterrence of others from crime, and the protection of society from crime. We are accustomed to regard the principle of ''reformation'* as a modern matter — one, say, of the last half century, since the establishment of the so-called State reformatories, beginning with the New York State Reformatory at Elmira, which opened in 1876. In the popular mind, the prisons, through the first century since 1776 to 1876 — exactly a hundred years from the first prison society in Philadelphia to the opening of Elmira — were places of strict and forbidding deterrence and punishment. The "reformatories" were founded, that the younger prisoners in State prisons might be transferred, or from that time on committed, to correctional institu- tions primarily reformative and educational in their scope and 10 Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. " Vaux, p. 8ff. " The death of the author is responsible for the absence of a statement on the repeal of the Law of 1790. 20 History of American Prisons purpose. The very term ''reformatories" has set the prisons apart in the popular mind, and even to-day, when honor systems and self-government, as well as extended systems of education, are found in many a prison, it still devolves upon the prison to emphasize the fact that its purpose is not primarily repressive and punitive, but curative and reformatory, in so far as these results can be achieved. Doctor Rush wished to deter from crime by exciting terror of the prison in the minds of the spectators. Throughout the following century we shall find this purpose uppermost, even in the minds of those who sought reformation in the criminal's heart. It was generally accepted as sound penology, in the early days, that ter- rorism within the institution would accomplish good ends. We shall see clearly manifested, somewhat later in our study, that ''reformation" among the earlier philanthropists connoted much more than at present the actual saving of the criminal's soul. Therefore, with so mighty a stake, those effects must be employed that would be most striking, impressive and potent. In an age when even the infliction of capital punishment for over a dozen crimes seemed fruitless, it was not unnatural that the substitute therefor, the prison, should shape itself in the minds of the theorists as a place where most forbidding influences and methods must prevail. / Yet Doctor Rush, in his article, held that all public punishments ^ — that is, punishments in the open, before the eyes of the onlookers, — tended to make bad men worse, and to increase crimes, by the noxious influences of such punishments upon society. At this time, 1787, the working of the prisoners publicly upon the roads of Phila- delphia must have been in the minds of all. Moreover, as we have seen, the instruments of public punishments, which we have referred to in our first chapter, were a frequent sight. Public punishments, maintained the young surgeon, destroyed the sense of shame in those punished, and made them hard. Of relatively short duration, publicity of punishment produced no permanent changes in the ' j sufferers. And when a man had been thus humiliated, he had noth- / ing more to lose, and would, in Doctor Rush's opinion, be driven i toward repeated crime. A century and a half of penal administration has seemingly proved the soundness of the then exceedingly radical views of Doctor Rush. To-day the whipping post survives only in Delaware. Corporal punishment in prison administration is forbidden by the laws of most States. Stripes have passed, as we have seen, in most Northern prisons. Brutality has yielded to deprivations of privileges, and to moral suasion. And in Delaware itself, where the court sentences to prison, and often lays an additional penalty of so and so many lashes at the whipping post, located at the prison — the Newcastle County Workhouse in Wilmington — the warden of the prison lays on the lashes in such fashion as at least not grievously to pain the man at the post. Moreover, according to Doctor Rush, the fortitude and pseudo- martyrdom produced in the criminal by public punishments stif- fened the resistance of criminals to the law. And so, in time, these History of American Prisons 21 public punishments produced a moral and mental insensibility to punishment. Upon the spectator, also, the effects were bad, because distress thus publicly and repeatedly seen — whether in the public employment of prisoners, or in the stocks, or the pillory, or in more brutal forms — worked in the spectator an increasing indif- ference to the sufferings of others, and an increased familiarity with the brutality of the law. The young and the innocent were hardened, and became acquainted with spectacles of human crim- inality that would have been spared most of them during their entire lives, had the punishments been private. But, maintained Doctor Rush, sympathy and pity ought to stir the minds and hearts of citizens for those steeped in crime, instead of the indignation and contempt toward the criminals that were engendered by such public exhibitions. One has, in our own century, but to read the papers to discover the false heroism and pseudo-martyrdom attending punishments that, although within prison walls, as in the case of executions, are nevertheless more public in many ways than were ever the public punishments of the era of Doctor Rush. Where, at that time, hundreds may have seen the flogging, or thousands the execution, to-day millions read, in the State of New York for instance, of the last moments of the newest victim of the chair. When the four gunmen were executed, several years ago, for the murder of Herman Rosenthal, the entire State of New York was given columns of minutest details of the preparations for the execution, and the execution itself, and the subsequent disposition of the bodies in the undertakers' establishments in New York city was the occasion for the thronging of thousands to the morbid viewing and acclaim- ing of the young men as — at least — not deliberate and wretched criminals. It was the insight of Doctor Rush as to this deep-lying trait of the human mind that led him to seek a solution of the problem of public punishments and of a substitute therefor. He maintained that a system of imprisonment should be developed along the fol- lowing lines. A large ''house should" be constructed in a con- venient portion of the State, the house to be divided into a number of apartments, and with cells for the solitary confinement of refrac- tory criminals. There should be developed at this house those industries that were capable of putting the institution on a finan- cially sound basis. There should be gardens, which would provide, by the labor of the prisoners, food for the inmates, and which should be also places of exercise. The name of this institution should convey an idea of its benevo- lent and salutary design, and it should not be called a prison. The direction of the institution should be committed to persons of high character, amenable at all times to the Legislature or to the courts. Let us seek to appreciate fully this project of Doctor Rush, in the light of present-day efforts for the betterment of prisons. Let us ask ourselves what general reception such a project would meet, even to-day, at the hands of those who still claim that the ''prison 22 History of American Prisons is for punishment. ' ' This Philadelphia physician, knowing nothing save a local prison that was a center of debauchery, proposed an institution that would embody : (a) classification of offenders, (b) a rational system of prison labor, (c) a productivity that should meet the expenses of the institution, (d) outdoor employment of prisoners, for the raising of food for their own consumption, (e) a kind of institution that should be a reformative institution. There is surprisingly close analogy here with the ''farm colony'* plan of prison or penal institution that in recent years has taken Froot in many States. But the genius of the physician was also most surprisingly manifest in his further proposition that the various methods of treatment to be visited upon the inmates should not be specified by the committing court, and that there should not be in the law any notice of the kind of punishment that awaited any crime. In short, the public mind should not become accustomed to think of crime in terms of the possible punishment that might 'be meted out to the offender in the penal institution. The kinds of punish- ment that might be employed should be specified in the law, but their duration should not be fixed, save as to a possible maximum. The limitations of punishment in specific cases within the prison should not be known to the prisoners. Said Doctor Rush: **I consider that this secret will be of the utmost importance in reform- ing criminals and in preventing crime. The imagination, when agitated with uncertainty, will seldom fail of connecting the longest duration of punishment with the smallest crime". ^ The historian of penal progress, looking in future years most carefully over the entire field of American penology and crimin- / ology for the first hundred years from 1776, will dwell with increas- / ing admiration upon this little brochure of Doctor Rush, for we /// cannot escape the conviction that in the physician's mind was a ' ^ clear foreshadowing of an indeterminate sentence — the practical working out of which was conspicuously the contribution of Enoch C. Wines, Zebulon R. Brockway, and Frank Sanborn in the days of the organization of the National Prison Association in 1870 at Cincinnati, and in the solidification of their theories in the first State reformatory at Elmira a few years later. Indeed, the often quoted ''Declaration of Principles," promul- gated and adopted at Cincinnati on the occasion of the first gather- ing of that body which has become the large "trade-congress" of those dealing with the institutional treatment of criminals and other delinquents, the American Prison Association, contains cer- tain paragraphs that are interesting to set along side the theories of Doctor Rush, advocated over eighty years before. From the "Declaration of Principles": > I. . . . Punishment is suffering inflicted on the criminal for the wrongdoing done by him, with a special view to secure his reformation. II. . . . The supreme aim of prison discipline is the reformation of criminals, not the infliction of vindictive punishment. History of American Prisons 23 III. The progressive classification of prisoners, based on character and worked on some well-adjusted mark system, should be established in all prisons above the county jail. IV. . . . Eewards rather than punishments, are essential to every good prison system. VIII. Peremptory sentences ought to be replaced by those of indetermi- nate length. Sentences limited only by satisfactory proof of reformation should be substituted for those measured by mere lapse of time. XVI. . . . Steady, active, honorable labor is the basis of all reformatory discipline. In the essay of Doctor Rush, he suggests nowhere a definite sentence for crimes. His ** punishments " include * ' painf ulness, labor, watchfulness, solitude, and silence. ' ' These were in his mind evidently the component parts of a prison sentence. The word "punishment" may well have connoted for him what we to-day understand by "imprisonment." To him, "imprisonment" con- noted such idleness, debauchery, and filth, as existed at the old jail on High street. We shall trace, from 179Q on, a succession of "systems" of prison discipline, but not until the above-mentioned development of the seventies of the nineteenth century is reached will there probably be found a more broad-minded, liberal and daring plan than that which, with some natural vagueness, was presented by Doctor Rush. Indeed, the physician seems to have embodied in his plan also the conception of a "court," quite distinct from any then existing body, that should visit the "receptacle of crime" twice a year and determine the nature, degree and duration (beyond a certain degree) of all punishments. No more power than was at the time vested in existing courts was suggested by Doctor Rush for the new court, save that it should at intervals visit the institution for the above purposes. The theory of a "court of parole" or of a "court of rehabilita- tion ' ' is relatively modern. The establishment of the indeterminate sentence in connection with the operation of Elmira Reformatory necessitated the determination by some legal authority as to the time when an inmate should be released from the institution. Con- sequently, in most recent years, boards of parole, distinct from the governing bodies of the institutions operating under an indeter- minate sentence, have been constituted by law, such as the Board of Parole for State Prisons in the State of New York, and the Parole Commission of New York city. It should be clearly under- stood that at the time of conviction the sentencing court imposes an indeterminate sentence, with a definite maximum not greater than the maximum provided in law for the specific crime. Within the maximum at one extreme, and whatever minimum the court may have imposed — or if the court has not imposed any minimum, at any time within the maximum sentence, the separate board or court of parole may release the prisoner upon "parole." Such is, in general, the present-day procedure. In Doctor Rush's mind, his "court" should operate distinct from the board of managers of the proposed institution. As a physician, he was hostile to any uniform or wholesale punitive 24 History OF American Prisons treatment of criminals.'^ Punishments, he contended, should be adapted to the constitutions and tempers of prisoners. The nature, degrees and duration of punishments should be adapted to crimes, as they arose from passion, habit or temptation. In short, the physician urged, as a general principle of penal treatment, the individualization of punishment. Again, the physician pointed out that the degree, nature and duration of pain, as a punishment, would require some knowledge of the principles of sensation and of the ''sympathies" that occur in the nervous system : "In the application of punishments, the utmost possible advantages should be taken of the association of ideas, of habit and of imitation. ... I have no more doubt of every crime having its cure in moral and physical influences than I have of the efficacy of the Peruvian bark in curing the intermittent fever. . . . The great art of surgery has been said to con- sist in saving, not in destroying or amputating the diseased parts of the human body. Let governments learn to imitate, in this respect, the skill and humanity of the healing art." In short, the physician here regarded the individual prisoner as a **case," each differing from the other. Somewhere there was a cure for every criminal, but the medicine for one was not necessar- ily the medicine for his fellow. In the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of the imprisoned criminal, the physician would employ the principles of physiology and psychology as then known to specialists. But, so far as we have learned in our study of this period, the chief interests of the Quaker physician were in the line of his pro- fessional speciality. In the development of the first prison system of Philadelphia, which was to become the early model for other American States, it was other men — perhaps more ''practical" — like Caleb Lownes, also a Quaker, who were to play the constructive part, and we do not now know whether the essay of Doctor Rush, read not in a meeting of the Philadelphia prison society, but before another group, ever gained much circulation. To-day, however, his long-forgotten essay brings him before us as a brilliant theorist, possessing almost uncanny prescience, joining him closely with the "pioneers" of eighty years later — linking us, in a way, with the far earlier William Penn in the breadth of his vision — and making the present-day program of the extension of the indeterminate sentence, the individual treatment of the prisoner, and the rational and scientific administration of prisons seem not so strongly "modern" in its conception or execution. CHAPTER III THE WALNUT STREET PRISON We come to the year 1790, a noteworthy year in the history of prison reform. The Pennsylvania Legislature provided in this year that a certain prison, located in Walnut street, Philadelphia, and which had been begun in 1773, should be remodeled, after which it should receive the prisoners from the old High Street Prison.^ In this renovated prison on Walnut street there should be confined two classes of prisoners, those who had been convicted of the more serious offenses, and those who had committed crimes of lesser severity. We find thus the law now providing a certain rough basis of classification — which is in a way the beginning of the rational treatment of prisoners. The more serious offenders were to be confined in sixteen solitary cells, each 6 feet wide, 8 feet long, and 9 feet high, a total of 432 cubic feet. The less ** hardened and dangerous" convicts were to be lodged in large rooms, approxi- mately 20 by 18 feet in size. The convicts in the solitary cells were to be absolutely without labor ; the other convicts were to work in shops during the day, in association with each other.^ We should pause here to emphasize the fundamental importance of the proper housing of prisoners, from several standpoints — safety, moral health and comfort. In this planned renovation of the Walnut Street Prison we face for the first time in our historical survey the cellular problem. Shall prisoners be housed separately or in association? Shall the separate housing of prisoners be for purposes of punishment? Shall prisoners be always separately housed, or shall they be allowed to be at any time in association? If at any time, shall they work in association and be housed sepa- rately when not working ? Shall prisoners be housed, if in associa- tion, in large dormitory groups, or in small groups ? If housed in association, what degree of guarding and supervision will be necessary or advisable? The provisions for housing the inmates of a prison are a vital matter. Lodging, meals and treatment are fundamental problems of any prison. The Walnut Street Prison became of nation-wide \ significance not because of any extraordinary conception in its development, but because, for lack of any other model, it became the pattern upon which numerous other State prisons were built and administered in the succeeding thirty years — until the far more noteworthy development of the competing prison systems of Au- burn and Pennsylvania rose suddenly, in the twenties of the nine- teenth century. In short, what was done at Walnut Street condi- tioned practically absolutely the prison system, so far as there was j^ a system, in the United States for nearly forty years. ^ 1 Vaux, p. 31. 2 La Itochefoucauld-Liancourt, p. [25] 26 History of American Prisons It is worth while, therefore, to dwell in some detail upon this device of the Quaker philanthropists to combine effective custody and punishment of criminals with humane treatment. The Walnut Street Prison started with the proposition of segregating its sup- posedly most difficult and dangerous cases. The single cells were thus at the outset branded in the public mind as punishment cells, for the protection of society and for the infliction of the hardest endurable conditions. In this respect, the single separate cells were the very extreme antithesis of the crowded promiscuous living rooms of the old — and standard — local jail. Half-way between the old crowded jail room and the separate cell were the rooms in Walnut street for the lesser offenders. It seemed to be believed that a number of prisoners, less dangerous so far as known, might be housed in one room. Herein the first prison system committed a fundamental error, which led only too soon, among other causes, to the absolute and deplorable breakdown of the first system of prison administration. For we shall shortly see how, as the population of the prisons in- creased, there grew up the constant temptation and even necessity for the prison authorities to crowd more and more prisoners into the so-called ** night rooms," where the bulk of the inmates not only slept, but also passed their leisure time. Amid naturally contaminating surroundings, inmates almost invariably corrupt each other, and undermine prison discipline and authority. What opportunities did the Walnut Street Prison afford for the classification of prisoners? The old High Street Prison had col- lected its inmates in a general mass. The Walnut Street Prison consisted of several buildings, housing not only convicts but lesser offenders (called vagrants), witnesses and debtors. The total area of the prison enclosure was 400 by 200 feet.® The prison building for those convicts who worked in association during the day was a large stone structure, 184 feet long, on the north side of the enclosure, two stories high, and divided into the above-men- tioned night-rooms. These rooms were separated from each other by a central hallway, extending the length of the building, and 11% feet wide. There were eight lodging or night-rooms, approxi- mately 18 feet by 20 feet, of this kind on each of the two floors. On the east and west ends of the buildings were two wings, extending 90 feet south, 2 stories high, containing 4 rooms on each floor, nearly the size of those in the large building. On the south side there was a large stone building designed as a workhouse, where the debtors were confined. Three hundred feet of the north part of the enclosure were divided off for the use of the convict population, and 100 feet of the south end of the yard for the debtors. The female prisoners used a yard 90 by 32 feet, and the vagrants one of similar size. The building that contained the 16 solitary or separate cells, which was called the ''penitentiary house" after the term intro » General Description from Lownes. Acct. of Alterations, etc., pp. 88Cf. History of American Prisons 27 duced into England by John Howard,^ was of plain brick, and 160 feet by 80 in size. Each cell was 8 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 10 feet high, had two doors, an outer wooden one, and an inside iron door.* A passage ran through the middle of the floor, separat- ing the cells, just as in most buildings for the lodging of any considerable number of persons the interior hall runs down the center of the floor, with rooms on each side of the corridor. A stove in the corridor was to warm the rooms. Each cell had a large leaden pipe that led to the sewer, and thus formed a very primitive kind of a closet. The window of the cell was secured by blinds and wire, to prevent anything being passed in or out. The convicts in the solitary cells were not to labor ; the other con- victs worked in shops during the day. That this ''penitentiary house" was the ** cradle of the American system of reformative prison discipline" was the assertion of Doc- tor Julius, th§ noted Prussian prison student and investigator, who visited this country in the early thirties of the nineteenth century, and published the above statement in 1839. Dr. Julius laid stress on the fact that this prison for the dangerous offenders embodied the principle of a separate cell for each inmate, which became ultimately the controlling factor in the erection of American prisons. Persons who had been convicted of crimes that were formerly punishable by death were to spend from one-twentieth to one-half of their term in solitary confinement. The yard surrounding the building containing the solitary cells was used as a garden, and was managed by some of the orderly convicts. Here we may perhaps find the echo of one of the propositions of Doctor Rush. The large yard in which was located the other prison building was used as a place of labor of convicts, and also as an exercise yard.^ It was probably not much of a step in the course of time from these solitary cells for the worst offenders to the **dark cell" and the ** dungeon." At any rate, here was the prototype. In admin- istering these cells as definite places of punishment, the tendency would grow to make them as forbidding and repellent as possible. An easy development caused such cells to be used as the severest form of punishment except corporal punishment. By the transfer of the prisoners from the High Street Prison to Walnut street, three great evils of the former prison were abolished, namely, the commingling of the sexes, the use of spirituous liquors, and the indiscriminate confinement of debtors and witnesses with those confined for criminal offenses. The new prison made as clean a sweep as possible of the old customs. The convicts at Wal- nut street were to be clothed in suits of uniform color and make. Labor was the prominent feature of the routine. Eight hours of work were required daily in November, December and January, ♦ Julius. " Sittleche Zusbaende," Vol. II, p. 124. ' A phrase current by 1779 in English law. Julius. " Sittleche Zusbaende," p. 132. » Lownes. Acct. of Alterations, etc., pp. 88flF. 28 History of American Prisons nine hours in February and October, and ten hours in the other months. Strenuousness and strictness of routine were fundament- als of the new system/ The government of the prison was vested in a board of twelve managers, called ** inspectors, " who were appointed from among the citizens by the mayor and two aldermen of Philadelphia. Seven members of the board constituted a quorum. A sub-committee of two members were to make weekly, or even more frequent, visits to the prison in order to supervise the details of management in all particulars. Most of the members of the board were of the Society of Friends. The prison was also to be visited every day by one or more of the inspectors, ''who all took great delight and were indefatigable in the execution of the humane task allotted to them."« Throughout our study we naturally find it of interest to trace the origins of methods that later become custom. Here in the Phila- delphia prison of 1790, and from then on, we find at the outset the theory that an unpaid board of managers, having the appointment of a superintendent or warden, enlists volunteer service of a high quality from among the citizens. The power that appoints such a board becomes in time generally the Legislature or the governor. The board of managers or directors, or ''inspectors" determines the general policies of the institution, and through a sub-committee supervises the administration. The executive power is vested in one official, the warden, or superintendent (or, as he was early called in New York, the ' ' agent and warden ' ' ) who is a paid officer, and is responsible to the board of managers. This general form of management of American prisons has varied little since its initia- tion at Walnut street. The new board of managers, among whom the dominant figure was Caleb Lownes,^ a Quaker, had solicitude for many things in the convict's life. Moral and religious instruction was to be pro- vided through the Bible and other religious books. Divine service was to be held weekly. So humane, by comparison with the earlier methods of dealing with criminals, were the new projects and proposals of law, that a time limit of five years was set upon the new law, and at the end of the time only a distinct success of the new methods, achieved in the meantime, would warrant a continua- tion of the system.^^ Yet, by 1794, the results were so remarkable that the Legislature went still further and reduced the infliction of capital punishment to premeditated murder alone.^* Over the new system at Walnut street there was in Philadelphia the greatest enthusiasm. Out of jail chaos seemed to have come prison order. The results appeared almost miraculous. In 1790 the law relative to the employment of prisoners upon the public ' Gray, Prison Discipline in America, p. 20. * Wm. Roscoe. " Observations on Penal Jurisprudence," p. 88. • Roche-Lian. Voyage, etc. 10 Turnbull, p. 11. " Buxton. HisiORY OF American Prisons 29 roads had been repealed, and labor within the prison substituted.^^ The new board of managers had made known to the prisoners at the outset **that the new system would be carried into full effect; that their treatment would depend upon their conduct, and that those who evinced a disposition which would afford encouragement to the inspectors to believe that they might be restored to their liberty should be recommended to the governor for a pardon, as soon as circumstances would permit; but if they were con- stricted again, the law in its fullest vigor would be carried into effect against ihem. A change of conduct was early visible. They were encouraged to labor. Many were pardoned, and before a year had expired their behaviour was almost without exception decent, orderly and respectful. ' ' " What were the apparently practical, statistical results? There was proclaimed a noteworthy diminution of crime in Phila- delphia in the first years of the new system. Convictions for crime and commitments to the prison, amounting to 131 in 1789, had fallen by 1793 to 45. The prison was called a school of reformation and a place of public labor.^* In the four years preceding the beginning of the new system at Walnut street, 104 prisoners had escaped from the High Street Prison; not a prisoner escaped in the four succeeding years at Walnut street, save the fourteen prisoners who ran away on the opening day, when a plot to discredit the innovation was engineered by the hostile jailer. ^^ Many of us are familiar with certain extraordinary apparent suc- cesses that have attended in recent years the introduction of new and bold methods, in prisons and other institutions, in the treat- ment of prisoners. We have heard of and seen, the remarkable results of the application of the ''honor system" in a score of prisons. We have heard of the best days of self-government at Sing Sing, under Thomas Mott Osborne. We have seen road-work conducted under almost unbelievably liberal conditions, with appar- ent success. We know the "thrill" of a successful new method, that seems almost to challenge the traditional * * laws of penological gravitation" as one friendly critic has put it. We can, therefore, sense the carrying power of the words of Caleb Lownes, writing in Philadelphia in 1797 of the new prison: **Our streets meet with no interruption from those characters that formerly rendered it dangerous to walk out of an evening. Our roads in the vicinity of the city, so constantly infested with robbers, are seldom disturbed by these dangerous characters. . . . Our houses, stores and vessels, so per- petually disturbed and robbed, no longer experience these alarming evils. We lie down in peace, we sleep in security. There have been but two instances of burglaries in this city and county for near two years. Pickpockets, for- merly such pests to society, are now unknown. . . . Out of near 200 persons pardoned by the governor, only four have been recommitted. If the discharged prisoners have returned to their old courses, they have chosen the risk of being hanged in other States, rather than encounter the certainty of their being confined in the penitentiary cells of this. ' ' " We come now upon one of the earlier evidences of the mutual influencing of Europe and America in penitentiary matters. The « Vaux. " vaux. " Lownes. Alterations, p. 91. " Gray. Prison Discipline in America. "Buxton, pp. 91-98. " Lownes. Alterations, etc., p. 100. 30 History of American Prisons Walnut Street Prison began to be known in Europe. In 1794 the Due de La Rochefoueauld-Liancourt, after visiting the prison, pro- claimed its excellences on the other side of the Atlantic. Robert Turnbull, visiting the prison in 1796 from the south, called it in a pamphlet a ' ' wonder of the world. " " De Beaumont and de Tocqueville, forty years later, reported that ''all the world repeated the praise of La Rochefoucauld.'^ It was natural that other States, seeking a model for their own new prison construction, should follow the lead of such an enlight- ened commonwealth as Pennsylvania, particularly since that State was the first to seek a modern solution of the problems of dealing institutionally with convicts. New York built a prison in 1796, Virginia in 1800, Massachusetts in 1804, Vermont in 1808, Mary- land in 1811, New Hampshire in 1812 and New York a second prison in 1816, the latter at Auburn, in the western part of the State. All of these earliest State prisons were constructed upon the general lines of the Walnut street institution, with large com- mon lodging or night-rooms for the prisoners, and with large rooms for their associated labor. Most of these prisons copied also the system of solitary cells for major offenders. Into the laws of the above-mentioned States were written, more or less literally, the laws of Pennsylvania regu- lating the administration of the Walnut Street Prison. The rules and regulations of the board of inspectors were likewise frequently copied. There was a striking absence of initiative on the part of other States. We have said that the basic principles of the new prison were labor and humane treatment. Whereas the prisoners in solitary confinement saw their keepers but once a day, and were then served with a coarse pudding of maize and molasses, and whereas these same convicts could acquire only after a certain time the privilege of working in their cells, and of reading therein, not being per- mitted to emerge from these cells except when ill, the ordinary convicts, not sentenced to solitary confinement, presented such a spirit of industry that it was difficult for Turnbull, visiting the prison in 1796, to divest himself of the idea that these were surely not convicts at all, but accustomed to labor from their infancy." The inmates worked at carpentry, joinery, weaving, shoemaking, tailoring, and the making of nails — all of them occupations that later became stock industries in American prisons. The unskilled convicts, and the group classified as "vagrants," were employed in beating hemp and picking moss, wood or oakum. The female convicts worked at spinning cotton, yarn, carding wool, picking cotton, preparing flax and hemp, and washing and mending.^^ In this earliest prison we find the complex problem rising of a wage incentive for the efficient labor of the prisoners. Through- out all prison administrations, it is found that two motives above all others actuate the prisoner to industrial effort: The hope of " Turnbull, p. 4. "Turnbull, p. 16. "Turnbull, p. 6. History of American Prisons 31 earlier release from prison for good work, and the hope of some financial recompense for his work. Perhaps no more difficult prob- lem still presents itself in American prisons than an equable wage scale and an equable commutation table. After maintaining State prisons in New York for over a century, since 1796, the Empire State has as yet been able to concede to the prisoners as a daily wage only one cent and a half ! And in other States, under different systems of labor and of marketing the products of labor, there is little uniformity or adequacy in the wages granted. The prison wage and prison labor problems are still in 1921 unsolved Cv m this country. Therefore, it is of special interest to see the manner in which the problems were attacked in this earliest State prison. Each male prisoner at Walnut street was said to be credited with fair pay for his labor, and was debited with the cost of his daily maintenance, which is still a favorite and reasonable method in theory, though not in practice. Moreover, the hope of an ultimate pardon was held always before the prisoners' minds. Approximately 15 cents a day was charged to the individual prisoner for board, and his share of the tools, and his earnings depended upon his ability and the nature of his task. Some prisoners earned more than a dollar a day, and went out of the prison with more than fifty dollars to their credit.-*' All prisoners, it was said, were released well clothed, and mostly with money in their pocket. The discharged prisoner in need was assisted by the Philadelphia Prison Society. The wages paid to the prisoners were the same as, or somewhat lower than, those paid for similar work on the outside. The law required that the prisoner should pay the costs of his trial, and generally also a fine. If there was a balance against the prisoner at the time of the expiration of his sentence, he was retained until it was liquidated. If the balance was in his favor, he received it.^* That the convicts might know both their earnings and their obligations, they carried their accounts in little books. The women prisoners had similar chances to earn small sums, and were debited for each day's maintenance about seven cents.^^ Untried prisoners were not forced to work, but those who desired work were given work to do.^^ Naturally, this chance to earn wages proved a powerful stimulus, and gave to the prison administration a chance to hold over the convicts the constant threat, not only of the solitary cell in cases of serious disobedience, but also of a cessation of wages during that period, accompanied by a continuation of the daily main- tenance expenses. The obedient convict fared relatively well. No irons or chains were allowed in the prison. The guards were forbidden to use sabres, pistols, or even canes.^^ Corporal punishment was said to be unknown within the prison. Moreover, while silence was the 20 Lownes. Alterations, p. 98. 21 Turnbull, p. 48. 2« Buxton, p. 92. 2* Buxton, p. 93. 26 Lownes, pp. 92-93. 32 History of American Prisons inflexible rule in the shops and at table, the convicts were allowed to converse in their lodging rooms at night, in low tones, until ordered to bed.-^ It might be stated, parenthetically, that the rule of silence was not imposed upon the female prisoners. "The orderly prisoners, who by their industry earn a sufficiency for the purpose, are allowed a better suit to attend public worship. ... No provisions are allowed besides the prison allowance, except to the more laborious part of the prisoners, while orderly, who are allowed to get some of the heads of the sheep from the butcher at their own expense; this is esteemed an indulgence, and is attended with good effects, both physical and mental. . . . The orderly women are sometimes indulged with tea. ' ' ^ This absence and virtual prohibition of deadly weapons, or of any weapons of defense whatsoever, was an extraordinary feature of this first prison system. We find here, at the outset, a series of regulations, and a method of attempting a humane and considerate treatment of prisoners, that are a revelation to those who have assumed that efforts at honor systems, equable wages, reasonable hours of labor, and government without the use of deadly weapons are new ideas. In a word, the earliest prison system started upon a high plane that has seldom been reached in any succeeding generation. Throughout the hundred and thirty years or more since the Walnut street institution began its career, there have been only a few years at the beginning and at the end of this span of more than a century and a quarter when it has been held that prisons can be largely governed without weapons of any sort. When revolvers were abolished at Sing Sing prison in 1916 it was regarded as not only revolutionary, but dangerous. Indeed, during the period of the preparation of this study, residents of Ossining, the city in which Sing Sing is located, appealed to the prison authorities ask- ing that revolvers be restored to the guards who were supervising the prisoners engaged in excavating upon the site of the new prison. There is, in this twentieth century, a popular idea that such institutions as the honor system, the outdoor employment of con- victs, the classification of offenders, self-government, and such prin- ciples as the indeterminate sentence are essentially the outgrowth of recent experiments by daring prison wordens. But, without detracting from the fine initiative that has led modern wardens or superintendents to undertake new methods, where politics or pre- cedents were averse to such enterprises, we must nevertheless have recourse to the old adage that there is nothing new under the sun, and in justice to the ''old days" thus outline in considerable detail these earliest efforts to conduct a penal institution with high intelli- gence and deep interest in the welfare of the prisoner. 22Turnbull, p. 26. 28 Lownes, pp. 92, 93. CHAPTER IV EARLY EUROPEAN INFLUENCES In seeking for the explanation of such apparently immediate enlightenment on the part of the pioneer penologists, we find that the Friends who largely developed this earliest system were not without a well-grounded knowledge of the penological principles of the times. There was constant intercourse in literature between the old world and America. Shipments of the latest books were eagerly awaited and perused. William Bradford 's little book, from which we have several times quoted, carried as the motto on the title page the statement of Montesquieu: "If we inquire into the cause of all human corruptions, we shall find that they proceed from the impunity of crime, and not from the moderation of punishment ' '.^ And Bradford himself held that **it is from the ignorance, wretchedness and corrupted manners of a people that crimes proceed. In a country where these do not prevail, moderate punishments, strictly enforced, will be a curb as effective as the greatest severity. A mitigation of punishment ought, therefore, to be accompanied as far as possible by a diffusion of knowledge, and strict execution of laws.* In 1773, three years before the first prisoners' aid society in Philadelphia was founded, John Howard, an English gentleman, had begun to visit English prisons as a horrified yet careful and balanced observer of the gross evils of those institutions. Prom 1773 until the publication of his monumental work on the ''State of Prisons in England and Wales," in 1777, he was an indefati- gable, painstaking investigator, visiting the principal European countries, and inspecting scores of prisons, jails and lazarettos. Howard's work stands out in spectacular singleness during this period, and when his work was published, ** there was a universal outcry of horror and indignation which was heard throughout the civilized world, when he disclosed the misery everywhere suffered by the prisoners.'" It was inevitable that he should soon become known in the new and pioneering republic across the Atlantic as the great authority on prison discipline and prison construction. It is likely that ultimately, when this early period of our penal history is fully explored, it will be found that John Howard was in many respects a founder of our American prison system. He was not, to be sure, the direct incentive to prison reform in this country, because ''prison reform," as we have seen, has already organized a chari- table society in Philadelphia by 1776. Yet he was unquestionably a substantial influence. It is a curious coincidence, perhaps, that ^ Bradford. Enquiry, p. . . . 2 Bradford. Enquiry, p. 43. » Encyclopedia Americana, 1832, Vol, X, p. 342. [33] 34 History of American Prisons Howard's first book on prisons appeared almost contempora- neously with the founding of the first prison reform society in America in the republican era, and that his death occurred in 1790, the very year of the opening of the first State prison man- aged in accordance with a highly humane plan of prison discipline. Caleb Lownes, William Bradford, and others of the Society of Friends became early acquainted with Howard's views, which were in part summarized by Bradford, and which we have still further summarized below : * Prisons for convicts at labor ought to be in or near a large town or city, and easily accessible to inspection. Inspection — that is, direction — should not be assumed from any mercenary- views, but solely from a sense of duty, and the love of humanity. Steady, lenient and persuasive measures have always been found the best means of preventing escapes. The great object of prisons ought to be to reclaim and reform prisoners. The earnings of the prisoners, from their labor, ought to be a secondary consideration to the State. Young offenders ought to be separated from older offenders. Solitary confinement, on coarse diet, should always be the inevitable por- tion of every old or great offender. But such punishment is best inflicted at intervals, seldom more than 20 or 30 days at a time. "-Tl oward's untiring investigations in England and on the conti- nent brought relatively quick results. In 1779, the English par- liament passed an act establishing ''penitentiary houses" near London, the objects of which were: "To seclude the criminals from their former associates; to separate those of whom hopes might be entertained from those who were desperate; to teach them useful trades; to accustom them to habits of industry; to give them religious instruction, and to provide them with a recommendation to the world, and the means of obtaining an honest livelihood after the expiration of the term of their punishment." It is more than probable that this law was known by 1790 to the Pennsylvania Quakers, and that it was a material guide in the establishing of the first State prison of Pennsylvania. Moreover, we find in Howard's ''Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe," published in London in 1789, the following analysis of the receptivity of desperate convicts to humane methods, which must have struck a most responsive chord in the hearts of such men as Lownes and Bradford: "There is a mode of managing some of the most desperate convicts with ease to yourself, and advantage to them. Many such are shrewd and sensi- ble. Let them be managed with calmness, yet with steadiness. Show them that you have humanity, and that you are to make them useful members of society; and let them see and hear the rules and orders of the prison, that they may be convinced that they are not defrauded in their provisions or clothes, by contractors or jailors. "When they are sick, let them be treated with tenderness. Such conduct would prevent mutiny in prisons, and attempts to escape; which I am fully persuaded are often owing to prisoners being made desperate, by the profaneness, inhumanity and ill usage of their keepers.'"* There were, apparently, rather close relations between the Phila- delphia Society and John Howard. On January 14, 1788, the * Bradford. Enquiry. ^ Howard. Account, etc., p. 222. History of American Prisons 35 Society wrote to Howard, sending him a copy of their constitution, and asking communications from Howard on the designs of the Society. . . . Howard expressed himself in one of his public works to the effect that he wanted in England a Society like that of Philadelphia, and that he would subscribe £500 to it, if other annuities were obtained. An illuminating statement was made some thirty years later, in 1821, by a Vermont lawyer, Daniel Chipman, relative to the reform movement of the period we are now considering : * **The penitentiary system was introduced into the United States when there was a rage for improvement. It was supposed by many, that the world, or rather some individuals, had been suddenly enlightened; that the dictates of experience were only so many more obstacles to the perfectibility of human nature, of which they talked so much, and to which they really believed they had arrived ; and that they could, by a mighty effort, bring the darkened and lagging world up to their own elevation. . . . "The projectors of the penitentiary system were peculiarly exposed to an enthusiasm which led them to expect beneficial effects, which could never be realized. Every feeling of humanity was enlisted — it was so pleasant and satisfying, to think not only of saving the life of the offender, but of reforming him, and restoring him to society a useful member. It was also calculated that the punishment would strike a dread upon the vicious, equal to an ignominious death upon the scaffold". Now, Daniel Chipman wrote the above lines when the first prison system, undertaken in high philanthropic enthusiasm, had broken down deplorably, and when there was actual and serious thought of reverting by law and by practice to the old sanguinary and capital punishments once more. He wrote: **This day of enthusiasm (above described) has passed away, and we find ourselves in the position in which imperfect man has ever been; knowing but very little which it is useful to know, but what was known before; and indeed, it requires labor to keep the stock good, if I may so say, and transmit as much to posterity as we might learn from those who have gone before us". Yet, in the pessimistic reasoning of the ''hard-headed'* New Englander from the Green Mountains, writing almost in phrases that to-day can still be frequently heard, there was at least a partial fallacy. We shall very likely come to believe, as we pursue this study, that the early penal philosophy of the Philadelphia group was ''before its time," and consequently could not last, but we shall also see that it was not solely the enthusiasm or the visionary nature of the early reformers, or their belief in the perfectibility of human nature that brought about the collapse of the first prison system. Failure came quickly enough from the combination of a number of causes, among which were politics, the withdrawal of the originators of the movement from further active participation' in its continuance, and above all, from the fundamental error with which the system started, namely, the physical impossibility of meeting with adequate separation and classification of individuals the increasing population of the prison. Architectural blunders, inherent in the housing provisions of the "Walnut Street Prison, made inevitable the break-down and the final disgrace attendant upon the first attempt to rationalize and humanize the treatment of convicts. • Report on the Penitentiary System. Appendix, p. 64. 36 History of American Prisons Yet, before that period arrived, with the turn of the century, we find the prison presenting an example most surprising to visit- ors. Turnbull, an interesting reporter of his own observations, discovered that some of the convicts even developed a real liking for their keepers, which he said was as surprising to him as that there should be crocodiles in Greenland/ A striking manifestation of a primitive form of honor system was recorded in 1793, when on the occasion of an epidemic of yel- low fever, a number of convicts responded to the call for volunteers to fill the places of attendants at the Bush Hill Hospital. They acquitted themselves well, none leaving the hospital until all were ready to go back to the prison, when the need of further service was past. One of the convicts subsequently married an attendant whom he met at the hospital. Another convict, imprisoned for robbery, was employed in the transportation of provisions from the city to the hospital, returning ultimately to prison, after excellent services. He finally received a pardon.* A variant of this tale, given by William Roscoe in 1819,^^ in his ** Observations on Penal Jurisprudence," was as follows: **At the time of the yellow fever at Philadelphia in 1793, great difficulty was found in obtaining nurses for the sick at Bush Hill Hospital. Eecourse was had to the prison; as many of the female convicts offered as were wanted; they continued faithful until the dreadful scene was closed. In another instance, when request was made to them to give up their bedsteads for the use of the sick at the hospital, they cheerfully offered even their bedding etc. When a similar request was made to the debtors, they all refused. ' * In this same period of the prison, we find a trace of primitive self-government, developed by the convicts, who established rules for their more harmonious living with each other : **One of their principal regulations relative to cleanliness was that no one should spit elsewhere than in the chimney. The punishment was simply an exclusion of the convict from the society of his fellow convicts; and this is found to be sufficient."* A century and a quarter later, at Auburn and Sing Sing Prisons, the self-governing Mutual Welfare League, composed of prisoners, employed somewhat similar ostracism as their chief form of punish- ment. And, just as in the most modern days it has been found that participation of the prisoners in their own government has in the main resulted in decreased necessity for watchfulness by guards, so in the Walnut Street Prison. In 1794 the Due de La Rochef oucauld- Liancourt discovered that 280 convicts were governed by only 4 officers, the women prisoners being under the control of a woman.^^ *'To be told that a turnkey would be beloved by criminals would have been as much believed as that Eeynard would be attached to a hound. I have been in a prison (Walnut Street) where the heart of the turnkey is like that of another man, and where humanity is the standing order of the day."^"* 'Turnbull, p. 35. 8 Turnbull, p. 30. , „ i ^ t^ . ^ • t. » Buxton quoted in notes sur les Prisons de la Suisse, by Francis Cunningham. Geneve, 1828, p. 153. ^ ^ ^ ^„^„ ,r, *4.4. w Roscoe. Observations on Penal Jurisprudence, London, 1819, p. 57, footnote. " La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. « Turnbull, p. 35. History of American Prisons 37 The health of the convicts was excellent. The physician 's annual bill, which before the new system has been $1,280 a year — a sum suggestive of the ancient possibilities of ''honest graft" — seldom exceeded under the new regime $160 a year.^^ The convicts' food was held to be adequate. For breakfast and supper a pudding of maize and molasses was served. Dinner consisted of one-half pound of meat, vegetables and one-half pound of bread.^^ What were the general results of this first prison system, in its period of rise and greatest efficiency, from 1790 to 1800? Sum- marizing the analysis of an early critic, in the Encyclopaedia Americana of 1832 : ^^ It saved the lives of many who otherwise would have suffered capital punishment. It saved many prisoners from the infliction of gross and unwise corporal punishment. The new system was much dreaded by the prisoners, and for a few years it seems to have reduced crime materially, and also the number of commitments to prison. The labor of the prisoners relieved the State of a considerable portion of the expense of maintaining the prison. Many men, formerly lost to society, were made useful and were trained to work. It set an advanced standard of prison discipline. That this radical attempt at the amelioration of the conditions of prisoners should receive criticism was to be expected. Incredulity was expressed at the time as to the truth of the amazing statements emanating from the friends of the new system. It was alleged, among other things, that the convicts at Philadelphia had been forcibly tamed into going through their routine like dumb wild beasts. But to this, La Rochef oucauld-Liancourt replied : ^^ '* Recall Doctor Hunter of York, in England, who of all other physicians has cured most lunatics, by striking off their chains, and leading them back by gentleness and reason. No one needs to be shocked by the comparison of fool and criminal.*' 12 La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. "Turnbull, p. 30. 1* Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. X, 1832, p. 342. " Voyage, p. 43. CHAPTER V THE BREAKDOWN By the year 1800 there was apparent an ominous relaxation of discipline within the Philadelphia prison. The prison society warned against any abatement of any part of the period of solitary confinement, and against increasing the hitherto infrequent at- tempts of the board of managers to secure pardons for deserving prisoners.^ These warnings deserve our attention. The Friends introduced rigid severity into the prison for those who had forfeited the right to benevolent clemency. Just as mildness was to be a persuasive factor in the reform of the budding criminal, so was a drastic soli- tary confinement to deter by its rigors the dense and calloused malefactor from further crime. These two extreme methods were thus employed to achieve the same end, the further cessation of criminal acts. At the very outset of the new methods, pardons had been prom- ised, as something to be hoped for in return for good labor and good conduct. Thus was the ground laid for what has always been one of the grievous abuses, and one of the most ready temptations to the breakdown of morale, in American prison administration. Freedom is the constant craving of the prisoner. The "intellec- tual" and the illiterate will both affirm that it is primarily the loss of liberty that is the chief punishment of the prison sentence. And, since the prisoner's mind is ever centered on the day when he is to come out, the pardon — and in later years the parole — have been constant inducements, or constant possible means, to stimulating the inmate to hard work and good behavior. Yet in the granting of pardon, as an act of grace and not of justice, there lies inherent the great possibilities of apparent favor- itism. The fortunate man was lucky — the one who did not get a pardon was discriminated against, in the opinion of the disap- pointed. Politics could ' ' get " to the governor of the State, for it was only by the governor that a pardon could be given. And in the first century of our American prison systems, when as yet the indeterminate sentence had not placed upon the prisoner a con- siderable responsibility for his own release from prison through his own good conduct and good work, it was the governor's pardon, that was the only means of earlier emergence from the bastile-like prison. Hence the abuse of the pardoning power was to become flagrant in many States. A reasonable incentive when sparingly used, and when grounded in justice and legitimate mercy, pardons became only too often a sop to the discouraged convicts, a method of achieving outward order in the prison by easy means, and they 1 Vaux, pp. 31flf. [38] History of American Prisons 39 were fundamentally a body-blow at the efficacy of the penal law, which prescribed a definite duration of sentence, only to be vitiated by the interposition of the pardoning power, often within a space of time that tended to make the sentence, the courts and the pur- poses of the prison appear absurd. The strength of the pardoning power lay in its opportunity to provide an incentive to prisoners to behave and to work. The weakness of the pardoning power lay in its ready and tempting abuse. The chief cause of the ultimate demoralization of the Walnut Street Prison system lay, however, in the increasingly crowded condition of the institution. Persistent increase of commitments to the prison broke the system down. Much of the success of the system lay in the personal attention that could be given to prisoners by humanely minded officers. This was possible in a prison of small numbers. But, whereas in 1793 the commitments to the prison had been but 43, in 1801 the commitments had risen to approximately 150, with no increased accommodations in shops or cells. Moreover, this prison was the sole place of confinement in the entire State for convicts. In addition, the substitution of solitary confinement for the death penalty was increasing not only the number of commitments to the prison, but also, naturally, was increasing the number of prisoners in the institution, because many of the terms of the prisoners were long.^ Moreover, the number of ** vagrants" was increasing. There was also much more crime, apparently, in the city than in the early years of the prison. Probably the institution was no longer an object of alarm among the criminals *'on the outside." Familiar- ity had bred contempt. The natural growth of the city and State population was bringing its proportional increase to the prison. A larger jail population meant increased administrative difficulties, both in lodging the prisoners and in working them. Silence and good order, at the prescribed hours, could be preserved only with greater difficulty. The natural tendency of the administration was to relax, and then to allow the discipline to slump. The expenses of the prison increased, both through the numerical increase in population, and because the consequent labor output was hindered by inmate congestion. Labor became less productive. Arrange- ments for the disposal of the manufactured product were less read- ily made. There was an outbreak of jail fever in 1802. There must be additional buildings, or a new prison. Even the present buildings were of faulty construction. The violent political strife in the city had its effect upon the personnel and the morale of the board of managers of the prison. Party politics led to the replacement, by other persons, of the original Quakers upon the board. The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons became gradually no longer an intimate co-operator with the prison board of managers, but an organization of protest and of opposition, as the policies « Vaux, p. 31ff. 40 History of American Prisons of the prison changed.* Undoubtedly, the personal devotion of the early members of the board ceased to control the affairs of the institution. Some physical alleviation came, for a time, when the Bridewell was built, on Mulberry and Broad streets.^ To this institution were sent henceforth those lesser offenders whom we to-day classify as misdemeanants, or as violators of local ordinances. Nevertheless, the Walnut Street Prison continued to be congested with felons, for from 18U7 on, the convict population increased out of all proportion to the increase of the State's population. The methods of the government of the prison underwent many changes. Shift- ing of managers and officers was frequent. Laxity, favoritism, and politics continued. Responsibility for administration was divided. The labor of the prisoners was increasingly exploited to the detri- ment of the possibilities of reformation. The former rigorous system of seclusion of the more hardened prisoners was relaxed or abandoned. The frequent recommenda- tions of the boards of managers for the pardon of prisoners became a serious abuse, and those who had been judicially committed to suffer the greatest punishment generally gained ultimately a par- don. Convicts were discharged from the prison without money or friends, and in many instances soon followed the line of least resistance, or of actual temptation, and reverted to crime.^° Of 451 convicts in the Walnut Street Prison in January, 1817, 162 had been previously convicted or pardoned. It was a time of increasing discouragement for the friends of a reformed prison discipline, but they were not shaken in their belief as to the validity of the principles they had espoused. By 1817, the Philadelphia Society was forced to announce that the demoralization of the now famous system had proceeded so far that 10 to 40 prisoners were lodged in rooms 18 feet square, and that the prison had already begun to assume the character of a European prison, and that instead of being longer a school of reformation, it was now a seminary of vice.^ The solitary cells were wholly abandoned before the year 1820.^ In this period the Society's activities took on several broader aspects. There was correspondence with the executives of peniten- tiaries in other States; also with the London Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, relative to the failure of the Walnut Street Prison system. The Society was planning for a house of reformation for juvenile offenders, seeking thus to elimin- ate them from the prisons where adults were confined — a move- ment that found its fruition first in New York city in 1824 and in Philadelphia in 1828. The Society also planned an asylum for the temporary employment of convicts discharged from prison or jail without employment, but this movement does not seem to have eventuated in a building.^ 3 Life of Thomas Eddy, p. 204. * Vaux, p. 39. " Roscoe's Inquiry. Appendix, p. 23. 8 Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 125. » Vaux, p. 46. 10 Vaux, p. 57. History of American Prisons 41 The period, from the standpoint of prison progress, became cru- cial. The danger of a complete breakdown of humane principles and beneficent legislation was a real one. In this crisis, the Prison Society urged, in 1818, that there be erected in the State two penitentiaries, one in the eastern and one in the western part of Pennsylvania. This proposal was adopted by the Legislature of 1818, which authorized the establishment of a new prison in Pittsburg, on a new basis of construction. The plan here adopted became later, in Pennsylvania, of the highest importance and should be especially noted. The prison was to be so designed that not only should each prisoner be in solitary confinement during his incarceration, but he should also, throughout his entire prison term, be without work? The act of 1818 also authorized the sale of the Walnut Street Prison, and the erection of a new prison in Phila- delphia, on the same general plan. We meet here developing the famous and fearfully drastic principle of imprisonment in solitude without work, which, sanc- tioned by leading philanthropists of the times, shows to what desperate straits of thinking and of penal philosophy the abhorrent disintegration of their first prison system had brought them. It was a leap into an unknown possible method of saving the ^* cause.'* To us of to-day there would seem to be hardly a severer punishment than continued solitary confinement without employment, or one more fruitless of good results. Indeed, we should confidently expect degeneracy, insanity and general collapse of the individual to follow in time. We shall see what the actual results were in Pennsylvania. Yet the Philadelphia Society believed that in that direction lay reformatory possibilities. William Roscoe of Scotland was an attentive student of the development of penal philosophy in the United States and espe- cially in Philadelphia. In his ** Additional Observations on Penal Jurisprudence," published in 1823, he gives what may have been the echo of an ingenious argument in favor of solitary confinement without labor : ' ' Since the labor of prisoners is not profitable, there will be no loss but perhaps a gain in keeping them in solitary con- finement without labor. And since work diminishes to a very great degree the tediousness of confinement, and thus mitigates the pun- ishment, it may become a question whether work ought not to be abandoned altogether except as an indulgence to the prisoner. ' ' * Doctor James Mease, an authority in Philadelphia on prison matters at this period, wrote : **The only good effect which religious public exercises have on convicts is in keeping them quiet, and inducing them to hope for a mitigation as to the period of confinement, by observing the religious routine prescribed. Eeforma- tion is out of the question. They are 'desperately wicked^, and there is nothing left for us but to frighten them away from the land, or to send them to distant sections of the globe. Solitary confinement will have the effect first mentioned; whether I shall succeed in persuading any of our legislatures to try transportation remains to be ascertained. " ^^ ' Vaux. ■Roscoe. Additional Observations on Penal Jurisprudence, 1823. "Roscoe. Body and Appendix. 42 History of American Prisons The fearful conditions in the local prison may well have stampeded them, so to speak, into the adoption of the above stand- point. They were swung into an extreme position by the occur- rences in the Walnut Street prison, thus described in a legislative document in 1821 : '* There were in confinement, on the first of January, 424 men and 40 women convicts. For want of room to separate them, the young associate with the old offenders; the petty thief becomes the pupil of the highway robber; the beardless boy listens with delight to the well-told tale of daring exploits, of hoary-headed villiany; and from the experience of age derives instruction, which fits him to be a pest and a terror to society. Community of interest and design is excited among them, and instead of reformation, ruin is the general result." In short, the position relative to prisons was approximately that preceding the first reform developments between 1787 and 1790, except that humane methods had been tried, and by caustic critics might have been cited as one of the causes of breakdown. The pendulum was ready to swing to an opposite extreme. Again the Philadelphia Society felt in duty bound to devise a new system of prison administration. CHAPTER VI NEWGATE PRISON IN NEW YORK In the years 1794 and 1795, Thomas Eddy, a New York philan- thropist and Quaker, visited the Walnut Street Prison several times for purposes of study. A prison was being planned for the State of New York. The New York Quakers had heard of the remarkable success of the Philadelphia prison. In the year 1788, thirteen crimes were still punishable by death in New York. Even felonies that for the first offense were punishable by fine, imprison- ment or corporal punishment, were, on conviction of a second offense, followed by the death penalty. The capital crimes at the time were : Treason, murder, rape, sodomy, burglary, robbery, arson, maiming and wounding, forgery, counterfeiting. Many of these crimes were capital only in certain more serious forms. Thomas Eddy was often in the later years of his life called the * ' John Howard of America. " ^ He was the dominant figure in the introduction of the humane methods of prison discipline into New York. He was a business man, and a philanthropist who devoted his life, so far as his means would permit, to works of charity. He was, apparently, the first American philanthropist to urge the erection of prisons in which all prisoners should be lodged in separate cells.^ His vision of a reasonable and humane prison system for New York led him, six years after the establishment of the first State prison in New York, to recommend for the city of New York the erection of a prison with a cell for each prisoner. He recommended for each county of the State the establishment of similar prisons. But at the time of urging, and later of designing, the first New York State prison, Eddy had not come to recognize the imperative necessity of providing a separate cell for each pris- oner, or of providing for the ultimate serious increase in the prison population, and so the New York prison fell at last into the same deplorable plight as the prison in Walnut street. **The plan of the present prison (the State Prison) was entirely my own, and though I visited Philadelphia and examined many of Howard's plans and was furnished with several by William W. Pitt, a member of Parliament from Dorchester, of prisons in England, yet a most striking error was com- mitted — it should have contained 500 rooms, 7 feet by 9, to keep the prisoners separate at night." Eddy was a most diligent student of penal principles. His own philosophy of criminal treatment was based upon Beccaria, Montes- quieu, Penn, Howard and other writers.** He sought a system of penal treatment that would be both disciplinary and humane. 1 Life of Thomas Eddy, p. 41. 2 Same, p. 76. * Same, p. 57. [43] 44 History of American Prisons With European philanthropists he maintained a diligent corre- spondence, and while receiving the documents sent him in abund- ance on European charitable and correctional activities, he exchanged persistently American publications with his European friends. Without question, he contributed much in this manner to establish the cross-currents of penological influence between Europe and America that marked the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. In 1796, Eddy induced General Philip Schuyler, a senator of New York, and Ambrose Spencer to introduce into the Legislature at Albany a bill ''for making alterations in the criminal law of the State, and the erecting of State prisons." By the passage of this bill in March, 1796, a radical amelioration of the penal code was effected. Only two capital crimes, murder and treason, were retained.®' ^ And, as in Philadelphia, so now in New York a prison system must be devised and installed. With an imitativeness characteristic of the early American States in penal matters, New York adopted almost bodily the Philadelphia system. And, for the first time, a prison was designed "to order,'' to fit the new penal code and prison discipline. The building commission and the first board of governors of the prison were composed mainly of Quakers.^ Indeed, Eddy was said to have built the prison, and he became its first warden. During 1796 and 1797 the State erected on Greenwich street, about two miles from the New York City Hall, and where now, only a block away, the Christopher Street Ferry slip stands, a prison, on the east bank of the Hudson River, which was called Newgate, after the famous London prison. To-day the remains of a brewery occupy the site of the ancient prison. Massive walls surrounded the four acres of prison land. Within these walls rose a building 204 feet long and two stories high. From each end of this edifice there extended at right angles, toward the Hudson, a wing contain- ing rooms for prisoners, and again from each of these wings a further wing, in the same direction, each containing seven solitary cells. Back toward the river, and parallel with the main building, was a two-story structure, 200 feet long, and two stories high, containing the workshops. In the central yard was a substantial vegetable garden. The first prisoners were admitted on November 28, 1797.^ The prison cost when completed about $200,000.^ The chief characteristic of this prison was its 54 rooms, each room measuring 12 by 18 feet, sufficient to accommodate in each case 8 persons.^ We see in this arrangement the ultimate doom of the prison foreshadowed. Thomas Eddy, writing prophetically even in 1801, said : "Had the rooms for the prisoners been so constructed as to lodge but one person, the chance of their corrupting each other would have been 3 View of New York State Prisons. ^ Corporal punishments were prohibited. « Life of Thomas Eddy, p. 19. ' Account of the State Prisons. * View of New York State Prisons. • Report of Society for Prevention of Pauperism, p. 19. History of American Prisons 45 diminished, and escapes would have been more difficult. The prison need not, in that case, have been made so strong or so expensive. Absolute reliance ought not to be placed on the strength of any prison. Nothing will probably prevent escapes but the unremitting vigilance of the keepers, and a strict. watch day and night.''" Eddy's vision was clear upon two points. Ultimately the disci- pline of the prison would require the separation of prisoners from each other, and secondly, prisons were safe about in proportion to the success of the methods of prison discipline employed, and not in proportion to the stone and iron of the structure. In 1910, Joseph P. Scott, long the superintendent of Elmira Reformatory, stated to the writer that the weakest prison, structurally, is the strongest, because of the necessity of unremitting vigilance of supervision. And in those prisons that to-day utilize the methods of self-government or of the honor system, the safety of the prison rests less than ever upon structural strength, and more than ever upon the ethical responsibilities of the inmates. The bulk of the inmate population of the New York Newgate was, therefore, to be lodged in large night-rooms, while only those condemned to separate confinement or under punishment for prison offenses were to occupy the solitary cells. In the large rooms, two persons slept in each bed, an unspeakably demoralizing practice in many institutions.^^ Prisons are under any circumstances the centers of abnormal life, and the proximity of two prisoners, when not under supervision, and not restrained by strong motives of honor, is recognized by intelligent prison executives as predisposing to vice and degradation. The beds at Newgate were made of tow cloth, stuffed with straw, enclosed in a kind of wooden frame or box that folded up during the day. The living rooms were located on each side of a central corridor. From their iron-grated windows the prisoners gained views of the green fields and of the river. The keeper and his family resided in the central building. The custom, at this time begun, of thus forcing the chief officer of the prison to be housed at the prison has endured to this day. In the earlier systems of prison discipline, we shall find there were frequent emergencies such as seemingly to require the warden to be constantly on hand to check riots or to enforce discipline. In later days, with the advent of more reformatory measures, the ijustom of housing the warden and his family at the prison has still endured. Only in most recent times has it been realized that the warden deserves the same opportunity that other officers of the prison have to get away from the prison for a certain number of hours a day. The injustice to the warden's family, and to the warden himself, of enforced constant proximity to the prison atmos- phere becomes more apparent, and the emergencies that require the presence of a warden, or control by brute force, become increasingly rare. The prisoners at Newgate ate their meals in silence in the cor- ridor, or in a dining room, at large tables. We shall see throughout " Account of state Prisons, p. 18. "Account of State Prisons, p. 18. 46 History of American Prisons the nineteenth century almost inflexible adherence to the principle of silence at meals in prison, and, with the advent of the Auburn system from 1823 on, silence at all times when prisoners are in contact with each other. The principle of silence as a penological means of discipline we shall discuss at length in connection with the establishment of the Auburn system of prison management. Special attention was given in the New York prison to the dietary and to the cost of food, Count Rumf ord 's studies in dietetics being regarded as authoritative. In the light of present food prices, we cannot refrain from citing the three following sample bills of fare at the New York prison in 1800 : ^ Breakfast, August 3rd, 1800 1 peck of rye $0 25 6^ quarts of molasses 1 02 130 pounds of bread of rye and Indian 1 95 Fuel used in cooking 08 Total for 235 persons $3 30 Dinner, July 28th, 1800 17 ox hearts $0 93 7 ox heads 1 09 6 lamb plucks 19 1 peck of potatoes : 15 3 pounds of Indian meal 46 3 pounds salt 05 ^th pound pepper 10 110 pounds bread 1 65 Fuel 224 Sundry herbs from garden 00 Total for 225 persons $4 45 Supper, August 6th, 1800 36% pounds Indian meal for mush $0 54 1 1/12 pound salt 03 61 pounds of bread 91 2 gallons, 3 quarts, and 7 gills molasses 1 79 Fuel 08 Total cost $3 36 The dietary was changed somewhat from day to day, and accord- ing to season. The inspectors took pride in their food experiments, which they regarded as a laboratory contribution to the State's knowledge of dietetics.^ We have seen how in Philadelphia the prisoners were employed at the Walnut Street Prison. In every prison there exists the problem of properly employing the inmates. The abolition of capital and sanguinary public punishments suggested inevitably, in connection with imprisonment, the necessity of employing labor as a substitute for the previous pains and tortures. Work, which is what man lives by, has been turned, in prison, into a punishment "Account of State Prison, pp. 40-41. " Account of State Prison. History of American Prisons 47 in itself, and distorted often into torture. The sentencing to hard labor has conventionalized the idea of the association of work within prison walls with punishment. Hence the reformative and vocational possibilities of the use of work were barely emphasized, and labor, hard by command of the law, has been from the first assumed to be an integral part of the prison sentence, and therefore not carrying with it any obligation on the part of the State to pay the inmate for what he does. Labor was, in other words, a part of the legitimate sentence of the criminal to prison. Whatever the prisoner might thus, by his labor, earn for the State would reduce by so much the expenses of the institution. The hours of labor were not a subject of concern to the State. In the free life of the ''mechanic," labor from sun-up to sun-down was sufficiently common to cause similar rules within the prison to be considered not only legitimate, but self-evident. The Newgate prison was distinctly in the country, in unsettled territory, and away from whatever police or military protection the city might otherwise offer. Hence, to ward against the danger of outbreaks under cover of the dark, it was not deemed wise or safe to let the prisoners out of their rooms before six in the morning in summer, or before daybreak in winter. The problem of employing the prisoners at Newgate was beset with difficulties from the first. After four years from the found- ing of Newgate in 1801, the labor of the inmates had not yet met the expenses of the institution. The first occupation, established two years after the opening of the prison, was the making of boots and shoes, which trade a life prisoner taught the other inmates. Blacksmithing, the cutting of nails, carpentry, weaving, cooperage, and tailoring were other trades, in each of which inmates super- vised the work of others. All the linen and woolen cloth and the stockings of the convicts, were manufactured in the prison.^^ The conditions in determining the occupations pursued were, so far as possible: Those requiring least capital; Those productive of profit; Those most consistent with health of the convicts and the general security of the prison. A system of crediting and debiting the inmates was introduced on lines similar to the procedure in Walnut Street Prison. On discharge, the prisoner was given his net earnings, if in the opinion of the inspectors he would make good use of the same. Otherwise, the earnings were calmly withheld, an act that surely must have turned the convict out into the world with no gentle thoughts regarding the justice of prison life. Sometimes the payment of earnings was delayed for three months, and the discharged prisoner must at the end of that time bring a certificate from his employer of his industriousness and good conduct. As at Philadelphia, the convict was debited for his clothes, and the expenses of his trans- portation, and was charged fifteen cents a day for board and lodging. "Account of the State Prison. 48 History of American Prisons The method adopted of witholding a portion of the prisoner's earnings, during a post-prison period of proving his good conduct and industry, had an element in it of the later methods of conduct- ing parole, which is the generally accepted term for the period of conditional release after a term of imprisonment, during which period the released inmate is under the supervision of a parole officer, and subject to such regulations as the institution or the duly appointed parole board may set. Parole came into practice in this country with the establishment of the indeterminate sentence and the State reformatories. But, whereas under the parole system, the prisoner released on parole must satisfy the authorities of his good conduct and his industry, it has not been customary to withhold from him any part of his earnings within the prison. Therefore, in the early methods of the New York Newgate, the withheld earnings acted in a way as under the parole system the rules and regulations of the paroling authorities. It tended to keep the released inmate ^'straight.*' The State of New York, by introducing industries into Newgate, went thus into the business of manufacturing for the ''open mar- ket ' ' — a system which in later years was called the ' ' State Account System." The prison bought the raw materials, made them up by the labor of prisoners, and sold them without the intervention or assistance of contractors or middlemen. The board of directors — ' * Inspectors ' ' — were empowered to employ the prisoners, and to credit them for their labor, as they might in their discretion decide. A significant law of 1801 provided that boots and shoes made by the convicts must be branded with the words: "State Prison.** There lay probably in this legislation the first feeble attempts of the ** honest mechanics," whose activities in later years we shall follow in detail, to reduce the newly threatening competition of prison-made goods with those produced by so-called ''free labor." In 1804, a further law provided that not more than one-eighth of the convicts should be employed in the making of boots and shoes, excluding women or men who had learned the trade before commit- ment. This was clearly a move to limit the production of a commodity which could be readily manufactured in prison. The female convicts occupied a separate wing, and were employed at washing, spinning and weaving. The convicts were garbed in summer in jacket and trousers of brown linen, and in a similar but heavier costume in winter.^^ The convict who had previously served a term in prison wore a garb half red and half blue. It must have early suggested itself that by clothing the convict in a conspicuous and unusual costume, he would be more easily distinguished if he should escape from the prison. This is probably mainly the origin of the marked garb of the convict, and the general adoption later of the stripes, alter- nately black and white and running on jacket and trousers in a horizontal direction. The government of the prison was vested in a board of seven inspectors, unsalaried, and appointed by the governor and council. " Account of State Prison, p. 19ff. History of American Prisons 49 Their frequency of meetings, and their methods of visiting the prison, were largely copied from the methods of the Philadelphia board. Certain State officials and ministers of the Gospel having churches or congregations in the neighborhood, were eligible to visit the prison.^^ We note already a certain semi-official authority or legal permission for specific persons not of the prison administra- tion to visit the prisoners. In the earlier years, as in Philadelphia and at Newgate, such permission granted to the Philadelphia Society and to the nearby ministers was primarily for the purpose of spiritual help to the inmates. The idea of an outside body in- specting the work of the prison authorities seemed not thus early to be planned, although later the various prison associations and prisoners' aid organizations secured in some instances the power of inspection and of reporting to the legislature on the conditions of prisons, as in the case of the Prison Association of New York, founded in 1844. We shall find in the State prison at Auburn in the late twenties of the nineteenth century, the question arising in marked degree as to the relation of the prison visitor, the clergy- man, to the warden and to the administration of the prison. The chief officer of the prison was the agent, who served as finan- cial and industrial manager. He received a salary of $1,500. The second in command was the principal keeper (a name that has survived in many prisons to-day, shortened in the prison vocab- ulary to *'P. K."), who had charge of the general discipline and routine of the institution. Under him were the assistant keepers. The salary of the principal keeper was $875, including his board and the necessary apartments for himself and family." One deputy keeper received about $400 a year; the assistant keepers $250, with diet, lodging and washing." By 1815 the salary of the agent (warden) had been advanced to $2,000. The principal keeper still received $875, and the addi- tional perquisites ; the deputy keeper received $600, and the assist- ant keepers $365, with meals, lodging and washing. The clerks received $600.^ Apparently it was at first intended that the principal keeper should command the prison discipline — an office that ultimately fell to the warden of all prisons. Here were the attributes that Thomas Eddy stated a principal keeper should possess — a list that to-day would qualify the fortunate possessor for positions paying much more than do many present-day wardenships : **A keeper should be a person of sound understanding, quick discernment, and ready apprehension; of a temper cool, equable, and dispassionate; with a heart warmed with the feelings of benevolence, but firm and resolute; of manners dignified and commanding, yet mild and conciliating; a lover of temperance, decency and order; neither resentful, talkative, nor familiar; but patient, persevering and discrete in all his conduct. *' While the unhappy wretches committed to his care and subjected to his power are regarded as susceptible of being influenced by their fellow men, and capable of reformation, he should never treat them with harshness, cruelty or caprice, nor thwart or irritate them in trivial matters; but on all « Account of State Prison, p. 19ff. " Account of the State Prison. "View of the State Prison. 50 History of American Prisons occasions, while he makes himself feared, he should by a mild and temperate behaviour, by visiting the sick, inquiring into their wants, and occasionally supplying them with little comforts, and speaking kindly to those at work, endeavor to gain their affection and respect. * * Though, in order that he may be on his guard against their machinations, he should consider them as wicked and depraved, capable of every atrocity, and ever plotting some means of violence and escape; yet he should always be convinced of the possibility of their amendment, and exert himself in every way to promote it; ... In the infliction of punishment he should be calm and inflexible without anger, so that he may convince the offender that he acts, not from passion or vengeance, but from justice. ' ' ^* We see here Thomas Eddy laying down the first standards for a new profession, that of the executive officer of a new kind of insti- tution, a prison, and undoubtedly outlining in summarized form his own eiforts as warden of the institution to deal justly and humanely with the inmates in his charge. These are specifications for a warden who would govern his prison mainly through person- ality. No warden with the above attributes could act comfortably within the limits set by hard and fast rules, nor would he establish a routine. Breadth of vision, ingenuity, high-mindedness and per- severing charity characterize this list of human attributes presented by Thomas Eddy. And to-day, in the frequent discussion in conventions and conferences like the American Prison Association and the National Conference on Social Work, we find insistent stress still upon the commanding role of ''personality" in the management of correctional institutions. Only as late as 1920 did Dr. Katharine Bement Davis, long the superintendent of the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford Hills, and with ripe experience in all phases of work with women offenders, state publicly that practically the only permanent reformations that she had observed in the course of her professional career had come from the influence of a dominant personality upon an inmate. As in Philadelphia, so at New York, the effort was made by the first board of managers to bar from the prison all corporal punishments, nor were arms allowed. The keepers must bar pro- fanity among themselves, and be gentlemanly. The punishment of the inmates was not to be physical, but by means of solitary confinement. Differing from the practice in Pennsylvania, in New York the judges did not — though the law permitted it — commit the convicted offender to solitary confinement as a part of his sentence. The solitary cells were used, therefore, as punishment for infractions of prison rules. As an inducement to good conduct within the prison, well-behaved inmates might see their wives and connections once in three months.^* There was a hospital ward, with an attending physician, at an annual salary of $200. His assistant, called ' ' apothecary, ' ' received only board and lodging. Prisoners acted as nurses. There was a chapel seating 600, but up to 1801 there was no chaplain, divine service being conducted on the Sabbath by ministers from the outside. "Account of State Prison, p. 25. 20 Account of State Prison. History of American Prisons 51 The law of 1796 not only made two crimes alone capital, namely, treason and murder, but it also made punishable by life imprison- ment, with the additional penalty of hard labor, or solitude, or both, those crimes formerly designated as capital offenses. Four- teen years was the maximum term for all first offenses above the grade of petty larceny. For a second offense in these crimes, the penalty was increased to imprisonment for life, with hard labor or solitude. Lesser offenses were visited by imprisonment not less than one year, or, for second offenses, up to three years. An escaped prisoner, if recaptured, must undergo twice the period of imprisonment specified for the original sentence. An escaped prisoner, who on the original commitment had been sen- tenced to life imprisonment, and who was again convicted of any crime above petty larceny, was to receive the death penalty. To us of to-day, such long sentences will seem often out of all proportion severe and unjust. But we must realize that they repre- sented the first rupture, in a new republic, with a relatively general use of torture and capital punishment for similar offenses. It was coming to be conceded, in an age that proclaimed all men to be born free and equal, that even the most wicked and despicable had certain elementary rights to life, ultimate liberty, and a mild chance to be happy, and that there rested on the State an actual obligation to amend the criminal as well as to punish him. The State constitutions of New Hampshire and Illinois, for instance, recognized this obligation. It is important for us to understand what *' reformation ' * im- plied, in this early period of devoted effort to reform, when possible, the convict. It meant primarily a religious and spiritual conver- sion within the prison house. This mundane life was but the threshold to either heaven or hell. If criminals were to be saved, impressive, and when necessary stern, means were essential. Far better to simulate by means of a rigid but just prison discipline and environment, for the purpose of redemption, even some of the impending tortures of the next world, than to introduce and tolerate a leniency in prison discipline that would lead to the mutual corruption of prisoners and to the destruction of their souls. Therefore, it was strongly believed that within these living tombs, where silence and solitude should prevail, and where a stern and unbroken routine should weigh impressively upon the prisoner, he would thus be delivered over to reflection, remorse and perhaps to repentance and ultimate reformation. With such methods of mental and spiritual persuasion could be combined that arduous and persistent, soul-mortifying labor that should teach daily the Biblical injunction that man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. In short, whatever punishments might be visited upon the guilty convict would be for his own ultimate good and the salvation of his soul. It must be remembered that the wickedness and the evil supposed to be lodged in the prisoner were far more keenly sensed, far more unquestioningly believed in, than is the case to-day. There was a sharp cleavage in the public mind between the good and the bad. 52 History of American Prisons There was little sense or theory of ''relativity" in morals in those days. If the good citizen was one of the elect, the criminal on the other hand was in imminent danger of becoming one of the damned. If the severe tortures, the mutilation and the deaths of previous days were now to be abandoned as salutary agencies, not only for the protection of society, but for the ultimate well-being of the criminal himself, there must be devised adequate and intimidating substitutes. And for a community that believed inflexibly in the existence of a state in the hereafter of everlasting torture for evil done in this world, and unrepented of, it was surely not difficult to concede and even argue the propriety and necessity of severe punishments in prison for evil done in defiance of law. Even if revenge was no longer to be the aim of punishment, the prisoner's amendment was not the only thing to be considered. Beccaria had recently written that penalties must not be arbitrary but precise and just, fitting the crime. The human mind strives ever to achieve a just ratio between crime and its punishment. W. S. Gilbert interpolated even in light opera the same striving, for in the Mikado's kingdom: **My purpose all sublime I shall achieve in time, To make the punishment fit the crime, The punishment fit the crime ! ' ' So, with the philosophical Beccaria of the late eighteenth cen- tury, grievous crimes must be attended by grievous penalties. Above all, the punishments must follow the offense with certainty. It was not the severity, but the certainty of the punishment that would reduce crime and deter criminals. Furthermore, the criminals of the time were not regarded as of a class to warrant much consideration. The public thought of them in terms of the poor wretches or horrible malefactors whom they had seen exhibited in the places of public punishment. More- over, what was at the time analyzed as the "scum of Europe" was furnishing a high percentage, perhaps a fourth, of the prison popu- lation; vagrants and strangers from other States were giving a like fourth. The colored race gave to the earliest prisons a propor- tion of inmates many times greater than its proportion in the general population of the States. Only with the Revolution had England ceased to send white convicts to America. Slavery was still, of course, an institution in many States. It is not difficult, therefore, to understand the humanitarian zeal of men like Caleb Lownes and Thomas Eddy. The prison reformers of this early period were constantly dominated by ardent, stern and sombre religious convictions, and their efforts were in the last analysis religious and missionary, rather than social and ethical alone. On the other hand, close association with prisoners led these thoughtful men to appreciate the powerful influences of social and economic conditions in forming character and in contributing to individual downfall. Gradually, out of the hour of these prison populations, and out of the early hypotheses of total depravity History of American Prisons 53 and individual responsibilty, came at last the value realization, at least, of the power of social, industrial and mental factors in leading men into prison. And so, a quarter century later, in 1824, only a few years before his death, Thomas Eddy wrote that the great error of all govern- ments had been in not affording instruction to the lower class of society, and in inflicting punishments often very disproportionate to offenses.^^ The absolutely arbitrary injustice of the penal code was abhorrent to him, whereby the difference between grand and petty larceny — and of a consequent sentence for years to a State prison, or a far shorter sentence to the Bridewell — depended upon whether there was less than $25 or more than $25 in the purse that was stolen — the criminal knowing nothing as to the exact amount in the purse, and having the same purpose of theft, whatever the Amount might be. So Eddy pleaded for varying sentences, and the practice of wide discretion by the judge.^^ As early as 1801, in his ''Account of the State Prison," Eddy laid down the principle that there were three things to be consid- ered, in the endeavor to attain the end of human punishment, namely, the prevention of crime : Amendment of the offender; Deterrence of others from crime; Eeparation to society and to the party injured. The first aim he regarded as the highest in importance. Justice, not revenge, was the true foundation of the right to punish. Eddy found three classes of criminals in prison : Men grown old in profligacy and violence, unfeeling and desperate offenders, who show no signs of contrition, and yield little hope of amendment; Those who in early life have received a moral and religious training, and though afterwards led by passion and evil example, still retain some sense of virtue ; First offenders. The most efficacious means of reformation Eddy found in regu- lar labor and exact temperance. One-tenth part of the criminal population Eddy regarded as depraved and hardened, and so about 22 of the most obdurate criminals were separated from the others and worked in separate apartments, from which they could not emerge, and where they were constantly watched by keepers. Let us return to some details of the early Newgate prison. While Eddy was warden, he published, in 1801, an ''Account of the State Prison." At this time, the beginning of the ultimate catastrophe was not yet visible. To the meritorious convicts, the three R's were being taught in the winter, and the educated convicts acted as instructors. To enter the class taught by a certain keeper, an over-stint of work amounting to four shillings in value must have been done during the week. Religious and moral instruction was furnished. 21 Life of Thomas Eddy, p. 82. 22 Same, p. 87. 54 History of American Prisons The opening of the penitentiary in New York was not followed by any diminution in crime. Rather was there an increase, which Eddy attributed, not to the reduction of severe penalties, but to the rapid growth of New York's population and wealth, with its attendant luxury, and its corruption of manners, and to the great number of indigent and vicious emigrants from Europe and from the West Indies.^ From 1797 to 1801 there were received into the prison 693 convicts : ^* Males Females Whites 469 44 Colored 145 35 614 79 Of these, there were 290 '^foreigners," the chief countries represented being : Ireland 117 Germany 18 England 49 Africa 18 West Indies 49 The so-called foreign population was, therefore, 42 per cent, of the total commitments, and the colored inmates far exceeded the proportionate number of colored population in the State. In all periods, those engaged in prison administration and in the treatment of the delinquent have sought the causes of crime. Generally, the findings have been limited to certain conspicuous factors, which often have been after all only the results of ante- cedent conditions, and therefore not the causes themselves. Com- prehensive studies of causes we have not found in this period. Eddy attributed to three causes in particular the development of crime (causes which in each instance were only manifestations of the quest of pleasure) : Intoxication. Horse Eacing. Animal Baiting. The multiplicity of dram shops and taverns aroused in particular Eddy 's ire. He felt that reformation would be a long process, and not reasonably to be expected in less than four or five years. There- fore he held that no pardons should be allowed in less than from four to five years after commitment — and in the case of life prisoners, in not less than seven years. Thomas Eddy thus early put his finger upon one of the chief causes for the continuance of crime. If crime is to be reduced, its inciting causes must be reduced. We have already spoken, in connection with the Walnut Street Prison, of the effects of the abuse of the pardoning power. In New York, even in the first four years, from 1797 to 1801, 27 of the outgoing population of 28 Account of State Prison, p. 68. 2* Same, p. 79. History of American Prisons 55 Newgate had been pardoned. The sentences of the convicts during this same period show how inevitable were to become both conges- tion and the consequent free use of pardons : Sentences to Newgate Prison, 1797-1801 Life 77 2 years 6 months 4 14 years 6 2 years 65 12 years 1 1 year 6 months 5 10 years 4 1 year 1 day 22 7 years 19 1 year 14 6 years 4 Less than 1 year 3 5 years 22 4 years 34 Total 344 3 years 44 In short, life sentences had been imposed on 23 per cent, of those committed to Newgate Prison, a percentage exceeded only by those committed for two years."^ The chief crimes during this period, as indicated by the causes of commitment, were: Grand larceny (over $12^^) 260 Burglary 34 Petty larceny 277 Assault and battery 20 Forgery 66 Horse stealing 15 It was in this early period that the prison industries most nearly paid the expenses of the prison. In 1802 the net earnings were given as $21,874 ; the disbursements for support and clothing, main- tenance of keepers, and transportation of convicts to the prison were $22,357. A contract was entered into with an outside manufacturer for the hiring of the labor of a certain number of inmates on boots and shoes, the work to be done within the prison.^* A change in the administration of the prison was quick in coming. As early as 1800, the complexion of the board of managers began to change, through the appointment of new members for political reasons, and the sagacious policies of the Quaker members began to be overruled. In 1803 Thomas Eddy found the position of warden intolerable, and resigned.^^ Of all causes of failure of American prison administration, poli- tics may perhaps be placed first. A prison requires an upright, humane, intelligent and efficient management, and above all, it needs continuity of tenure for able officials. To those who follow this study of American prisons, the noxious influences of politics will become so often apparent as to seem finally almost universal. The demoralization of the prisons through the spoils system occurred repeatedly. Both in Philadelphia and New York, the very beginnings of the prison reform movement were frustrated, within a few years, by the unintelligent, if not deliberately inten- tional, appointment of unfit managers. Thus did the prison, which Thomas Eddy had in large measure built, and in which he had been the first warden, pass from his control. The prison had cost in the original appropriation $208,000. New York lost in Eddy's resignation a valuable man, ^ Account of State Prison. 2« Report of Inspectors for 1803, p. 1. 27 Life of Thomas Eddy, p. 19. 56 History of American Prisons one who might, under favorable circumstances, have invested the wardenship of a prison with a dignity and standing that might have had permanent effects later on. For we learn, from ''The His- torical Discourse of John W. Francis," on November 17, 1857, on a half century's personal reminiscences, that Thomas Eddy was a rare soul : ''He was a philanthropist in the fullest sense of the term, free from all sectional bias . . . associated with the Manumission Society, the New York Hospital, the Free School System, the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, and the most prominent individual to project and organize the Bloomingdale Hospital for the Insane. **His fiscal integrity afforded a captivating illustration of his Christian belief. His early career in merchandise proved disastrous, and embarrass- ments to himself and friends for years followed. By the simplicity of his habits and a rigid economy, he was again made whole, when he discharged with fidelity every obligation with interest. "I always thought that by this one act he had mounted at least a rung or two up Jacob's ladder." Almost from the first, trouble occurred at times in the matter of discipline. In June, 1799, 50 to 60 men revolted and seized their keepers, and not until the guards opened fire on them with ball cartridge — by which several were wounded though none were killed — was the mutiny quelled. In April, 1803, 40 men broke from the prison into the prison yard, and caused a fire. The keepers killed several inmates during this riot. In May, 1804, a still more dangerous riot occurred. The keepers were locked into the north wing of the building, which was then set on fire. A pris- oner who repented of his act released the keepers. There was a building loss of $25,000, and many prisoners escaped. There were losses now from bad debts, and a loss of $11,000 on the labor of prisoners. * ' More room ! ' ' was the inspectors ' plea in 1806. The prison was suffering from the indiscriminate herding of prisoners in the Bridewell. In this local institution, which was built on the Common (where now is City Hall Park) in 1775, were confined those convicted of small thefts and petty offenses, and those awaiting trial or conviction. The Bridewell was called **a nursery of criminals for the State prison." It was the jail for New York City.^* It was for these prisoners that Eddy urged in 1804 the erection of a new prison, with separate cells for the solitary confinement of each prisoner, for periods not exceeding 30 days for the lesser offenders, and from 60 to 90 days for the more serious offenders. Eddy urged that these inmates of the Bridewell should be kept in perfect solitude, on spare diet, which would be in his opinion a course of treatment severer than confinement for one or two years in the State prison. This plan would also relieve the courts of the necessity of sending convicts to the State prison for less than three years. Eddy's project was not realized. It was not until 1838 that the Bridewell was torn down — at which time was erected on the site of the Collect Pond on Center street the first ''Tombs," so-called 28 Account of State Prison, p. 62. History of American Prisons 57 because of the remarkable Egyptian architecture. In the ** Halls of Justice," as the entire building was called, the local jail occupied a part. Eddy's plan is historically of great interest, because it seems to have been the earliest project, in the North Atlantic States, for a prison that should be operated entirely on the principle of sep- arate confinement without labor. Eddy meant that the punishment should be quick, severe, forbidding, and soon ended. But the city of New York refused to meet the total expense of such a structure, which the State desired to load upon the city, and so the project fell through. When, a score of years later, solitary confinement without labor was tried out in Auburn Prison and at the Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, it was found to be cruel and impracticable. By the year 1808, the pardon evil had obtained large sway at Newgate in New York. Necessity was pleaded as the reason for the regular practice of granting pardons to a sufficient number of convicts to make the total number of discharges equal to the commitments within the same period to the State prison. And this vicious custom continued regularly from this time on. An outgrowth of this oppressive congestion was the suggestion of the board of inspectors in 1809, for the first time, that a second prison be built, somewhere in the interior of the State. It had been originally intended, by the law of 1796, to provide for two State prisons, of which one was to be located at Albany. But the plan was abandoned, and the entire appropriation made available for the State prison which was erected in Greenwich. By 1814, citizens of New York had become greatly alarmed, because groups of forty or fifty of the * ' best ' ' prisoners were being pardoned on the occasion of the semi-annual visits of the judges to the prison, and were let loose at the same time upon the com- munity.^** The evils arising from the pardoning power, as we have said, lay in the abuse and not in the use of this means of grace : **A penitentiary", wrote William Eoscoe in 1819'^ concerning the failure of the earliest system of American prison discipline, "where penitence is of no avail, is a solecism; . . .if the principle of pardon were abolished, these establishments would be no longer places of reformation, but places of punishment. The extension of pardon to penitent and reformed criminals is not only an act of strict and unalterable justice, but is essentially necessary to the very nature of a penitentiary.'* The commissioners who in 1817 studied the Massachusetts State prison saw also the necessity of a judicious exercise of the pardon- ing power, and stated that ''if it were understood by the convicts that they could free themselves from confinement only by their industry, and that their return to society would depend wholly upon their own exertions, a new spirit would prevail among them, which would ensure the performance of their assigned tasks. ' ' *' *'The most notorious felons,'' said the Report of the Society for Preventing Pauperism in 1822,^' ''have again and again been 2» Report of Society for Prevention of Pauperism, p. 16. «° Report on Penitentiary System of United States, by Hopkins, p. 94. «i Roscoe. Observations, p. 106. *■ Report of Commissioners to Massachusetts Legislature, 1817. 58 History of American Prisons pardoned from our penitentiaries, while the young and inexperi- enced culprits, for committing crimes of comparatively petty mag- nitude, are kept in for years. ' ' The report indicated that in a certain five years, 740 convicts were pardoned, and only 77 through expiration of sentence. Of 23 convicts convicted of second and third offenses in 1815, 20 had been previously pardoned, and only 3 had been discharged at the expiration of sentence. Quoting Sir James Mcintosh in the British House of Commons about the year 1819, the report said: **One pardon contributes more to excite the hope of escape than 20 executions to produce the fear of punishment." At this time, the additional expense of a military guard at the prison should be mentioned. For many years, to keep order and to prevent riots and escapes, in a region considerably outside the city, a captain, two corporals, a drummer and a fif er, and some twenty privates were employed, at an annual expense of about $8,500.'" By 1815, the garb of the convicts had been changed, and we find the first mention of stripes. In winter the convict costume con- sisted of a jacket and trousers of striped woolen, and in summer of striped cotton and linen. Second-termers (those who had already served a term in prison) wore a garb with one side of the jacket and trousers brown; third termers wore a tri-colored cap of blue, red and white with the numeral * * 3 " in front. To-day the ignominious stripes and the parti-colored or motley uniforms have been in general abolished throughout this country in the State institutions of the north. The additional humiliation of stripes has been abandoned. ''Stripes burn into your flesh through the cloth," said a prisoner many years ago to the writer. In the restoration of the self-respect and self-confidence of the prisoner stripes and humiliating uniforms can play no part. The ''prison gray" has become a customary shade for the prison uni- form, and the writer, sitting some years ago upon a bench on an inspection of Sing Sing, noted that the garb of an inmate who sat next to him at the time, in conversation, was in shade and in general in texture little different from the suit the writer was wearing. Other forces than the conspicuous and deterrent stripes are to-day employed to inhibit men from escape from prisons. There were, by 1815, three visiting physicians and one surgeon, serving without compensation. They visited in turn once a week or oftener if necessary. There was a resident physician, who had board and lodging. A custom that later provoked public criticism, and which led undoubtedly to disorder in the prison, was the rewarding, "to a certain" extent, of the prisoners by giving to the especially indus- trious inmates a pint of ' ' wholesome beer. ' ' The inspectors believed that this bonus stimulated to diligence and exertion.** 83 The guards performed the ordinary duties of a guard, on the walls; aud in rounds. »* View of New York State Prison. History of American Prisons 69 There was a chaplain, the Reverend John Stanford, who supplied the desk once a month. On other Sundays clergy of different de- nominations preached. There was always good deportment in the prison at the services, and many persons in the vicinity of the prison attended worship at the prison. It was also the chaplain's duty to visit the sick weekly. In 1815 the warden of the prison proposed a noteworthy im- provement in the methods of classification. We are especially con- cerned, in this study, to discover the origins or early development of theories or methods that later proved their efficacy in American prisons. And we find here the first_§uggestion of grading prisoners along lines that later in the century became epoch-making, and that led directly to the American reformatory system. The warden — at this time designated as '* Agent" — recom- mended that, as an incentive to industry, good order, and reformation, a classification be made of the convicts, forming them into three or four classes, selected from among the best behaved prisoners, having reference to their terms of service. No pardon, moreover, should be granted save within the first class of prisoners, except in special instances. '*We will suppose", said the Agent, "that there are seventy in the first class, whose terms of sentence are from three to five years. These men shall be informed that on a continuance of good behaviour, one half of their sentence will be remitted, and they will be entitled to their pardon accord- ingly; assuring them that particularly favorable circumstances may obtain it sooner, subject, however, to degradation by the board of inspectors." Furthermore, the agent recommended that there should be given a certificate of ** liberation by merit" to those convicts who had during their confinement met the approbation of the board of managers. In the agent's opinion, the grading method would be an inducement to reformation and industry, and would obviate the wholesale discharge of convicts twice a year.^ It is recognized, to-day, that the proper classification of prisoners is a sine qua non of reasonable and constructive treatment of inmates. We spoke, in the opening paragraphs of this study, of the new receiving and classification prison shortly to be opened in place of the old Sing Sing Prison. To-day the prison physician, the psychologist and the psychiatrist are integral parts of the staff of the *' progressive " prison and reformatory. Individual treatment of the inmate is regarded as practically as important in prison as in a hospital. To deal with prisoners in the mass is the sign of unenlightened administration. It is well established that in every prison are found a number of groups of inmates, some insane some feebleminded, some psychopathic, some suffering from disease, and some relatively normal. The prison of to-day is becoming a sifter of these groups, classifying them as to conditions and as to treatment. Yet this recognition of the widely varying individualities in the prison population is of comparatively recent occurrence. The psychologist and the psychiatrist are still rather novel members of ^ View of New York State Prison, p. 71. 60 History of American Prisons the staff of many a prison. The physician, only a few years ago, was still the general authority on all the physical and mental states of the prison population. ''Horse sense, '^ an attribute confidently announced by many a prison warden as present in abundance in his own make-up, wa^ the main basis of administrative judgment. Returning now to our discussion of the Newgate Prison of New York, we find that the prison inspectors' report for 1815 carried some enlightened prerequisites for any recommendation on their part for a prisoner 's pardon. A majority of the inspectors should join in every recommendation for pardon, and they should previously inquire : Whether the prisoner was convicted by clear and undoubted testimony. Whether the circumstances attending the commission of the crime denoted a greater or less degree of depravity. Whether the prisoner had already suffered a punishment sufficient to satisfy society, and to afford a reasonable ground to believe that his release would not diminish the dread of future punishment in him, or inspire the hope of impunity in others. Whether in prison he had conducted himself with uniform; decency, industry, and sobriety, and had never attempted to violate any of the regulations. Whether, from what was known of his temper, character and deportment, it was probable that, if restored to society, he would become a peaceable, honest and industrious citizen. '* The above-cited recommendations of the agent and the practical prerequisites for pardon laid down by the board of managers were in some respects a remarkable foreshadowing of the indeterminate sentence and of the later grading of prisoners by classes, with eligibility for parole only after the attainment of a certain standing within the institution. Indeed, even the theory of the ''ticket of leave," employed in England in connection with transported con- victs, and which gave the chief suggestion for our American system of parole, is foreshadowed in the above ' ' liberation by merit. ' ' Meanwhile the pardon evil was becoming intolerable. Of all convicts committed between 1811 and 1816, for a second or third time, two-thirds had been discharged from their former sentence by pardon.^ In 1816 and 1817, a total of 573 convicts were par- doned.^^ It was no longer the case of an occasional release by grace. It was a constant procession of outgoing convicts as the newcomers arrived. Clearly, the prison system, from any deterrent standpoint, had wholly broken down. Such a situation could not long continue. The whole administration of prisons was rapidly becoming a civic disgrace. ^ To add to the problem, between 1815 and 1822, the failure of the prison to succeed as a financial undertaking was still more marked. A very intelligent inmate, writing in 1823 under the title "Inside Out " ^ of his several years ' imprisonment in this New York «» Roscoe. Observations, p. 108. ^ Report of Massachusetts Commissioners on State Prison, 1817. 8« Report of Agent of the Mount Pleasant State Prison, No. 92, In Senate. New York, 1834. «» " Inside Out, or an Interior View of the New York State Prison." By One Who Knows. New York. James Costigan, 1823. History of American Prisons 61 Newgate, drew a graphic picture of the brutality and misery of the place. Among the punishments prevalent were : The chaining of inmates to the floor, on their backs, for several consecutive days, with diet of bread and water, in solitary confinement; The "Sunday Cell", about 5 feet in height, and 3% feet square, in which a man of ordinary stature could neither stand erect nor lie downj Blocks and chains; Flogging. Solitary confinement for slight offenses. The inmate writer of ''Inside Out" inveighed especially against the brutal callousness and coarse ignorance of the keepers and guards. We meet in the above list of so-called punishments our first example of the inevitable development within the prison of methods of physical discipline, amounting often to torture. We shall meet constantly the narratives of such infliction of pain, for the main- tenance of discipline and for the punishment of those who have disobeyed the prison rules. The prison offered an exceptional chance for the infliction of grave corporal punishments and even torture. The place was behind great walls, ever concealing what was going on; the public had little interest in the prison; there was always the easy excuse that the one punished was unruly, or gravely disobedient, or dangerous, or obstinate. The prison authori- ties were in the earlier years not supervised by any State authority, and had practically free rein to do their will. The warden and the officers could during most of the twenty-four hours do their own will with the prisoners, unbeknown to the board of managers. The prisoner 's word was of little or no weight ; the word and assevera- tion of the warden or other officers was far more potent. The prisoner often realized that to complain to a member of the board of managers of treatment received at the hands of the officers was tantamount to additional and far graver punishment later on by the officers complained against. The prisoners were regarded as most dangerous men ; they had forfeited by their crimes the same consideration that men *'on the outside" might expect. Moreover, we are in our study in the period when bodily punish ments had taken the place of capital punishment for many offenses. Imprisonment alone seemed no adequate punishment to many an officer and guard. When the prisoner was unruly, or participated in some outbreak, there was little ground for leniency, and much ground for drastic, prompt and persistent punishment. Thus did the prison become a place of dread doings, removed from public gaze and public knowledge, a place of oblivion, where all the power rested in a few hands, and where the mind of the prisoner was ever on escape from the wretched, and often horrible, surroundings. This degeneration of the prison from the high ideals of Caleb Lownes and Thomas Eddy was so far advanced that about 1820 private indignation meetings of influential citizens began to be held in New York City. 62 History of American Prisons *' These meetings were private, because a knowledge of the acts of mischief, as taught in these places (the prisons), could not be communicated to any but good citizens." In 1822 the State government stepped in with an investigation of Newgate and other prisons. Regarding the New York institu- tion, the report of the State committee stated that it was operating ''with alarming frequency to increase, diffuse and extend the arts of vice, and a knowledge of the arts and practices of criminal- ity."^ The causes of the failure of Newgate prison were sum- marized as follows : The overwhelming number of convicts. Their profligate and abandoned character. The impossibility of making their labor successful. Pecuniary embarrassment in the affairs of the prison. Enormous demands on the public treasury, without the intermission of a year. New and fruitless endeavors to make labor productive. The fearful progress of the prisoners in corrupting each other. *^ It will be noted that while the writer, himself a convict, of ''Inside Out" lays some of the blame for the situation upon the callousness and cruelty of the officers of the prison, the State committee's report recognizes no such factor in the disintegration of the prison. To them, congestion, idleness, recidivism and debauchery were spelling the breakdown of the first State prison of New York. Recidivism — that is, the return of a prisoner for a new crime — has always been one of the most frequent phenomena of all prisons. Convicts committing a second crime within the State in which they have committed their first, are naturally sent again to State prison. They become the "second-termers," the "third-termers," the "re- peaters," the "habituals" of the prison statistics. The annual reports of the prison inspectors of Newgate cited as early as 1815, many illustrations, of which the following is typical.^ It happens to be the record of a woman ' ' repeater, ' ' but many examples might be culled similarly of men ' ' repeaters ' ' : Charlotte Thomas, alias Margaret Devibe. Admitted, January 28, 1797, for grand larceny. Sentence, 4 years. Pardoned in 3 years, 6 months. Keadmitted, April 14, 1801, for petty larceny. Sentence, 2 years. Eeadmitted, June, 1803, for petty larceny. Sentence, 3 years. Eeadmitted, August 12, 1806. Two indictments for petty larceny. Sentence, 4 years. Keadmitted, June 19, 1813, for grand larceny. Sentence, 3 years, 1 day. "Such a prison," wrote William Roscoe in 1819,^ "is no longer a school for reform, but a receptacle and shelter for acknowledged guilt. ' ' Roscoe held the remedy to be in an adequate classification and consequent separation of groups of prisoners from each other. "No delinquent," said Roscoe, "should twice be sent to the same penitentiary, but other measures, perhaps transportation for life, should be adopted." *o Hopkins, p. 96. *i Same, p. 93. *2 Annual Report for 1815. *3 Observations, p. 99. History of American Prisons 63 *' Liberated felons jeered at the State Prison, and denominated it their 'college'. Many committed crimes for the express purpose of getting back to prison again. ' ' ** We find the Senate committee in New York, four years after similar action in Pennsylvania, making in New York the same radical and fundamental proposal for a prison administered on the basis of solitary confinement, without any employment of prisoners. There should be a renovation of Newgate prison to this end, and a gradation of punishments. Because of the greater consequent severity of the punishments, in solitary confinement and in enforced idleness, it was maintained that the period of imprisonment could be shortened at the time of sentence. Solitude, silence and dark- ness, with stinted food, should in the opinion of the Senate committee effect the purpose sought. A further radical recommendation was that all industries be abandoned. The committee maintained that this would actually reduce the expense of the operation of the prison. With the use of the solitary cells, there would be reduced rations, and so the prisoners would need less, because less active. To such extremes were the intelligent citizens of New York and Philadelphia driven in their penal theories ! Both cities came thus to advocate a system of imprisonment that to us of to-day seems little short of deliberate torture. Yet with both groups of reformers, there was unquestioned sincerity, and a belief that even if an evil, it was the least evil that could be devised, and still insure the maintenance of a prison discipline that would both punish and amend. The Society for the Prevention of Pauperism had, in 1822, indicted the then existing system, or lack of system, in a graphic description, suitable to close this chapter upon New York's first effort to solve the State prison problem: "Our prisons (referring to penitentiaries in the several States) are com- munities by themselves. All the characteristics of social intercourse are presented. The members of these little communities are comfortably clothed, comfortably fed, condemned to moderate labor, and easy tasks, permitted to have their hours of ease and recreation, indulged in talking over their exploits in the paths of guilt, suffered to form new schemes for future execution, and to wear away their term of service, under circumstances calculated to deprive it of every salutary effect". ** Senate Document 92, 1834, p. 5. CHAPTER VII ^ NEWGATE OF CONNECTICUT On the seventh of December, 1775, George Washington, com- manding the American forces, addressed a letter to the ' ' Committee of Safety ' ' at Simsbury, Connecticut, as follows : "Cambridge, Bec.jf, 1775. Gentlemen. — The prisoners which will be delivered you with this, having been tried by a court martial and deemed to be such flagrant and atrocious villians that they cannot by any means be set at large or confined in any place near this camp, were sentenced to Simsbury, in Connecticut. You will, therefore, be pleased to have them secured in your jail, or in such other manner as to you shall seem necessary, so that they cannot possibly make their escape. The charges of their imprisonment will be at the Continental expense. I am, etc., George Washington." This letter sent certain prisoners of war to one of the most terrible and at the same time one of the most picturesque prisons that we meet in our study of early American prisons. In 1707, a company had been formed in the little hill village of Simsbury, Connecticut, about fifty miles north of New Haven, and some miles west of Hartford, to operate a copper mine. In 1705, a vein of ore had been discovered there. As gold was believed to be not far distant, a company to work it had been quickly formed. The company's vicissitudes do not concern us, but after several com- panies in turn had sought to make money out of Connecticut copper, the mine was abandoned until 1773, when the Colony of Connecticut made of this strange cavernous property, with its several levels of underground galleries, an underground prison. It was dubbed Newgate, perhaps with the hope that the name would be as terrify- ing as the prototype in London. From 1775 to 1783, this Newgate was the national prison of the Continental Government, and from 1790 to 1827 the State prison of Connecticut. During the Revolution it was used in part as a prison for Tories. From the first the prison was a scene of violence, stupid management, escapes, assaults, orgies and demoralization. It was the first State prison we have record of in our study in length of use in this period. It was bought in the beginning and ''for- tified as a prison" for the sum of $375. In 1827, the newly erected State Prison at Wether sfield superseded this notorious underground institution. Newgate of Connecticut has no comparative value in our study. It seems to have been little, if at all, affected by the new movement in prison administration in Philadelphia or New York. No reform- ative influences are narrated by its chief chronicler, Richard 164] History of American Prisons 65 Phelps. Taking Phelps' record at its face value, it would be hard to find adjectives sufficiently graphic to describe conditions in this prison. The old mine was forever a makeshift prison. The entrance to these dungeons, as described by Charles Burr Todd in 1881, is by a perpendicular shaft fifty feet deep, ''whose yawning mouth is still covered by the guardhouse standing in the center of the prison yard. To one of its sides is affixed a wooden ladder, down which the visitor must climb to reach the dungeons below." "At the bottom of the shaft, a flight of stone steps leads down thirty or forty feet farther to a central chamber, which contained the sleeping apartments of the convicts. On one side a narrow passage leads down to a well of pure water, above which an air shaft pierces the sandstone for seventy feet until it reaches the surface and admits a few cheering rays of light into the dungeon. Everywhere else a Cimmerian darkness prevails. These caverns may be briefly described as comprising three parallel gal- leries in the heart of the mountain, extending 800 feet north and south, and connected by numerous cross passages cut to facilitate communication, while lateral galleries honeycomb the mountain on either side. The lowest depth reached is three hundred feet. The galleries are cut through the solid rock, and are low and narrow, except in the case of the chamber above mentioned. Their floors are covered with a soft adhesive slime, and in some places with water, which drips unceasingly from the roof, and the intense darkness and noxious gases which prevail make their passage difficult, though not impos- sible. Besides the main shaft there are other means of exit from the dun- geons — two air shafts, both of which open in the prison yard, and a level or drain leading from the northeast gallery, and having its outlet without the prison wall." In 1773, Connecticut passed an act directing that male prisoners not under sentence for capital crimes should be imprisoned in the mines. A keeper. Captain John Viets, was appointed. Burglary, robbery and counterfeiting were punished, the first offense by imprisonment not exceeding ten years, the second offense by im- prisonment for life. Punishment which might be inflicted upon the convicts was moderate whipping, not exceeding ten stripes, and putting shackles and fetters upon them; the keeper was also instructed to employ them at labor in the mines. Wooden buildings were more than once constructed at the mouths of the shafts, only to be burned by the prisoners. When the convict band emerged from their caverns and into daylight in the mornings, their appearance seemed like the ''belching from the bottomless pit." The prison was thus described by Phelps, who saw it in its later days : **The horrfd gloom of this dungeon can be realized only by those who pass along its solitary windings. The impenetrable vastness supporting the awful mass above, impending as if ready to crush one to atoms; the dripping water trickling like tears from its sides; the unearthly echoes responding to the voice, all conspire to strike the beholder with amazement and horror." John Hinson was the first prisoner formally committed to New- gate on December 2, 1773. On the eighteenth night of his confinement, being the only prisoner, he was drawn up through one of the shafts in a bucket that had been used for hoisting ore, the rescuer of Hinson being one strong-handed Phyllis, serving on one of the neighboring farms. Escapes in similar ways were not 3 66 History of American Prisons infrequent in the earlier years. The prisoners were lodged in huts and cabins, made in the caverns. The most atrocious congestion and commingling of prisoners came to be practiced in time. In a room 21 feet long, 10 feet wide, and less than 7 feet high, 32 m?en were crowded at night. The prisoners were secured with iron fetters around the ankles. While at work, a chain fastened to a block was locked into these fetters, or around the ankle. No female prisoners were at first sent here, but served their terms in country jails. Later, an act of the Legislature admitted them to Newgate. During the eight years of the war of the Revolution, Newgate became widely celebrated, because of the housing of prisoners of war. We read frequently, in this early period, of the dense ignorance and inefficiency of the guards and keepers, not only at the Con- necticut Newgate, but at other prisons. Here is a letter from a guard discharged from Newgate in Connecticut: To the Hon. General Assembly, The humble petishen of Able Davis; whare as at the honorable supene court holden in Hartford in December last I was conficted of mis Deminer on the count of newgate being burnt as I had comand of said gard and was order to bee contind 3 month and pay fourteen pounds for disabaing orders, I cant read riten, but I did all in my power to distingus the flame, but being very much frited and not the faculty to doe as much indistress as I could another time and that is very smaul, what to do I thot it best to let out the prisners that war in the botams as I had just time to get the gates lifted before the hous was in flames, and the gard being frited it twant in my power to scape them. I now pray to the Deflahaned from further in prisment, and the const of said sute as I hante abel to pay the const, or give me the liberty of the yard as I am very unwell as your petishner in duty bound will for ever pay. Hartford Gaol, January l^th, 1783. Abel Daveis.'' Dodd tells of a desperate outbreak that occurred during the time of the imprisonment of prisoners of war on May 17th, 1781. "At that time there were thirty desperate men confined in the vaults. The guard in charge of them consisted of a lieutenant, sergeant, corporal and twenty-four privates, several of the latter mere boys, and all lax in their ideas of discipline. The officers were armed with swords and pistols, the privates with muskets and fixed bayonets. "On the night of the day in question, after the prisoners had been fastened in the dungeons, the wife of a convict named Young appeared and desired to see him, and, as there was nothing suspicious in this, the request was readily granted. Two oflBicers lifted the trap, the rest of the guard being asleep, but no sooner was the heavy door unfastened than it was thrust violently up from beneath, and the whole body of prisoners rushed into th*^ room. "The two officers were at once struck down, the arms of the privates seized, and, after a sharp tussle, the insurgents became masters of the prison. In the melee, six of the guard were wounded — one mortally — and a like number of assailants. After this exploit, the victors proceeded to close the hatches on their former guards and fled to the forests, and, with one or two exceptions, succeeded in escaping. "This wholesale delivery produced the wildest excitement, and expressions not very complimentary to the management of the prison or to the honesty of the guards were freely bandied about." It was a motley company, this Newgate crew of convicts. They were allowed to gamble away their daily rations of a pound of meat, a pound of bread, a pint of cider, and potatoes. A near-by History of American Prisons 67 tavern offered its commodities to those convicts who possessed money earned through working for themselves or others, after the daily prison stint was done. Flogging, the stocks, heavy irons, hanging by the heels, and other stern survivals of the Colonial period were customary punishments. The compulsory daily work consisted of making nails, barrels, shoes, wagons, and of doing farm and job work, and operating the tread mill, which was a form of punishment quite unusual in America. Dodd has this of interest to say, regarding the sanitary <5onditions : "Other observers have noted the fact, recorded by them, that the confine- ment was not detrimental to health; indeed, some of the prisoners reached extreme old age while incarcerated there. The circumstance was attributed by some to a medicinal quality of the mineral rock which forms the wall of the cavern; others supposed it to be due to the equable temperature. In 1811, experiments were made to ascertain the mean temperature of the mines, when it was discovered that the mercury ranged eight degrees lower there in the hottest days of summer than in the coldest days of winter, and -that the mean temperature was forty-eight degrees." Edward Augustus Kendall traveled through the northern parts of the United States in 1807 and 1808, and visited the Newgate Prison, of which he wrote : **When the bell summoned the prisoners to work, they came in irregular numbers, sometimes 2 or 3 together, and sometimes a single one alone; but whenever one or more were about to cross the yard to the smithy, the •soldiers were ordered to present, in readiness to fire. The prisoners were heavily ironed, and secured both by handcuffs and fetters ; and being therefore unable to walk, could only make their way by a sort of jump or hop. On -entering the smithy, some went to the sides of the forges, where collars, dependent by iron chains from the roof, were fastened round their necks, And others were chained in pairs to wheelbarrows. . . . Prisoners in the yard are treated precisely as tigers are treated in a menagerie; and if the minds of men are influenced by education, then the education of a tiger may be expected to make a tiger of the man. ' ' ^ This miserable makeshift of a prison was abandoned in 1827, when the convicts were removed to the new State prison at Wethers- field. A history of cruelty, riots, insurrections, vice and crime — such is the sum total of Newgate's contribution to early American prison history. Receiving those steeped in crime, it degraded them still more. It forced the debauched and the decent, the young and the old, into intimate physical association. It was a plague spot on American prison history, quite comparable with the convict ships of the transportation period of England. As one chronicler well says of it, ' ' the system was well suited to turn men into devils, but it never could have transformed devils into men." It seems not to have been susceptible to the reform wave that affected Phila- delphia, New York, and Massachusetts, to which we shall shortly give our attention. Yet, in Connecticut for twenty years, prior to 1827, it was held, ' in public opinion, that Newgate was the best prison in the country. "The Boston Prison Discipline Society's annual report for 1827 remarks, however, that ''there has been a great change in public » opinion in the last two years." ^ E. A. Kendall. " Travels Through the Northern Parts of the United States In the Years 1807 and 1808. Vol. I, pp. 206-218. CHAPTER VIII THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON It was more than ten years after the introduction of the new system at Philadelphia in 1790 before Massachusetts set to work to build a prison, and to adopt in general the new methods tested out in Pennsylvania and New York. The history of the Massa- chusetts State Prison, in the period that ended approximately with 1829, when another prison building was erected with separate cells for individual prisoners, and when the so-called ''Auburn system'* of silence, separate cells and associated labor was introduced, is given to us in a number of annual reports of boards of inspectors, descriptions of the prison administration, and in a popular descrip- tion, compiled from old records by Gideon Haynes.^ Haynes laid much stress upon the severe disciplinary features of the early years of the prison. The inpsectors ' reports stress especially the fiiaancial difficulties of the institution. The student gains a very positive impression of stern treatment and of the subordination on the part of the administration of any reformatory influences to the demands that the prison be run economically and even stingily. VPrior to 1785, Massachusetts h^ no places save county jails for the imprisonment of convictsd-^n 1785, a prison was built on Castle Island, in Boston Harbor, but because of the insecurity of the prison it was abandoned in less than twenty years. Inmates could escape across the ice to the mainland in the winter, and if good swimmers, could not be deterred from escape in the summer. Charles Bulfinch, in his report to Congress in 1827 on the subject of penitentiaries, stated that on the occasion of Castle Island being ceded to the United States in 1804 by Massachusetts, the Legislature of that State directed that a State prison be built in Charlestown. And so Massachusetts began to build a prison on four acres at Lynde's Point, just across the Charles River from Boston, in Charlestown. The prison was to be ''for the reforma- tion as well as the punishment of convicts." It was opened on December 12th, 1805. The original intention was that the plan of the prison should embrace only solitary cells, 7 by 9 feet. But when built, the prison resembled in general plan and structure Newgate of New York. 1 Pictures from Prison Life. An Historical Sketch of the Massachusetts State Prison. Gideon Haynes. Boston, Lee & Shephard, 1869. Account of the Massachusetts State PHson. By the Board of Visitors. Charles- town, 1806. Report on the Penitentiary System of the United States. New York, 1822. Rules and Regulations of the Massachusetts State Prison, 1811. (In Appendix to Account of Massachusetts State Prison.) Description and Historical Sketch of Massachusetts State Prison. 1816 or 1817. Report of Committee appointed in 1816 to consider subject of the State Prison of Massachusetts and to inquire into the mode of governing the Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, 1817. Report of Board of Visitors, 1823. 2 Pictures, etc., p. 13. [68] History of American Prisons 69 It was 200 feet long. The central section, 66 feet long and 28 feet wide, contained rooms for the keeper and other officers, as well as a kitchen in the basement, and a chapel and hospital in the upper story. On each end of the main building was a wing, 67 feet long and 44 feet wide, four stories high, containing in the first story 28 cells, 8 feet by 11 feet ; the second story, 30 cells of similar size, and in the third and fourth stories a total of 32 rooms, 17 feet by 11 feet.« Like a massive fortress this prison was built, conditioning per- haps in part the growing idea that the prison house should be of monumental proportions. Safety, of course, was constantly sug- gesting the necessary use of stone and iron. This Massachusetts prison was supposedly fireproof, and it was held to be impossible to undermine it. The outer walls of the prison were four feet thick; the doors of the basement story were of solid wrought iron, weigh- ing from 500 to 600 pounds each. The prison yard, 375 by 260 feet, was surrounded by a stone wall actually five feet thick at the bottom, three feet thick at the top, and fifteen feet high. Truly a bastile ! Naturally, prison buildings, because built for security, are of an enduring construction when once completed and in operation. Therefore, when once a great prison structure has been built, it has lasted long, and often has continued to condition a form of treatment long after a less enduring structure might have been scrapped to gi\e place to new methods. A striking example of this is manifest to-day in the State of New York. The reformatory treatment of the so-called young offender, now committed to Elmira Reformatory, is far different in theory and practice from what it was fifty years ago, when the Reformatory was first designed. The prison-type of cell, the great congregate structures, the relatively restricted area within which the large inmate population is handled, are all obsolete in reformatory designs of the present day. Yet, because of the very large financial outlay of the State as represented in the great congerie of buildings at Elmira, the Reformatory continues to function there, although the treatment would be far more satisfactory, and probably far more conducive to rehabilita- tion, were the Reformatory upon a wide acreage, with relatively small group-buildings, giving the chance for much more individual- ized treatment of inmates. The State prisons now used in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York (Auburn and Sing Sing) and New Jersey were all built nearly a century ago. The cost of the Massachusetts State Prison, which is the subject of this chapter, is said to have been $170,000.* A board of five managers, called ''visitors," was appointed by the Governor and his Council. Their duties were similar to those of the boards in the prisons of New York and Philadelphia. The industrial activities in the workshops (located wholly within the prison yard, 122 feet long by 25 feet wide) were also similar to the earlier prisons heretofore described. Contract labor was used 8 Report of Society for Prevention of Pauperism, p. 19. * Pictures, pp. 13ff. 70 History of American Prisons when possible, the first contract being let in 1807, when William Little engaged the labor of 20 men, to work at a plating and harness business, paying for their total services $40 a week for the first six months, and $50 weekly after that.^ The chief industrial occu- pations were the hammering of stone, foundry work, blacksmith- ing, shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry and paint-shop work. The dietary for the week was thus laid down by the board of visitors : ^ Sunday. 1 lb. bread, of cheapest materials; 1 lb. coarse meat, made into broth. Monday. 1 lb. bread; 1 qt. potatoes. Tuesday. 1 pt. Indian meal, made into hasty pudding; l^^ gill molasses; I qt. soup made of fox heads and offal. Wednesday. Same as Monday. Thursday. 1 qt. Indian meal made into hasty pudding. Friday. Same as Tuesday. Saturday. ^^ lb. bread; 4 oz. salt pork; 1 qt. pea or bean porridge. From the first, the prison seems to have been a center of severity, outbreaks, and escapes. As early as 1809, a ** refractory room^' was established in the basement, 25 feet long, grated and otherwise fortified. "Here there were a suitable number of chains for the legs, and of a proper strength, to be worn by the prisoners confined in this room." Financial difficulties were present from the first. Many resigna- tions and appointments to the boards of visitors were recorded, which must have seriously interfered with any consistent policy of administration. There was friction with the officials of the State. By 1810, five years after the first prisoner was admitted, the total cost of maintaining the prison had exceeded the receipts by $50,238.^ However, in 1811 we read of a secular privilege accorded, apart from school work. The warden was directed by the board of visitors "to indulge the prisoners on the approaching Thanksgiving in such manner as he shall judge advisable, not exceeding double the expense of their usual fare.'' The warden was also instructed to arrange for a Thanksgiving oration by a citizen, T. Austin. One of the problems that to-day are in the forefront of questions of prison administration is the problem of recreation for prisoners. Indeed, it will be found that much of the honor system is based upon the conferring of recreational privileges in return for the increased responsibility of inmates to conduct themselves properly, work better and not attempt to escape. The visitor to a modern prison is struck forcibly with the *' privileges " enjoyed by many if not most of the inmates. These privileges are largely recrea- tional. There are occasionally baseball games that may be played, or attended. There are occasional concerts or movie shows in the 5 Pictures, pp. 13fiF. 8 Pictures, p. 18. ' Pictures. History of American Prisons 71 auditorium. There is the free time daily in the yard. There is conversation at meals. One may play musical instruments in the cells at certain times in the day or evening. And so forth. Even the permission to have occasional visitors, or to write or receive letters from outside, or to wear certain articles of clothing furnished from the outside, are all recreational privileges in the larger sense. They alleviate the ordeal of imprisonment, and furnish pleasure to the inmates thereby benefited. The granting of recreational privileges has been found in these later years to be one of the strongest inducements to good discipline that can be employed. To bring some variety into the monotony of prison life through actual pleasures has been equivalent to putting before the inmate one of the strongest incentives to behave himself. When shall we find the early prisons affording to the inmate any alleviations, any pleasures ? When shall we discover the use of the desire for pleasures on the part of the inmate capitalized, so to speak, by the prison administration? Shall we find that public opinion demands so strongly the punishment and the actual terrorizing of the prisoner, that no admission of alleviating recrea- tions and pleasures is tolerated? Shall we find the early prisons such edifices as fitly to bear above their entrance gates : ' ' Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! ' ' Throughout our study we have been keen to discover any approaches on the part of wardens to an individualistic treatment of the inmates such as is to-day a marked characteristic of so-called modern wardens. In Massachusetts, as early as 1811 we find record of a punishment in the prison savoring of the old Colonial days in that State. An order of the prison board of visitors recorded that "a gallows be erected in the prison yard, at an elevation of 20 feet, on which certain prisoners, 7 in number, shall be placed, and sit with a rope around their necks for one hour, once a week, for three successive weeks; that for 60 days they wear an iron collar and chain as the warden shall direct; and that they wear a yellow cap, with asses' ears, for 60 days; and that they eat at a table by themselves; etc., etc. The sentence shall be read in the hall at breakfast, in presence of all the prisoners.'** In Massachusetts, as well as in New York, certain elementary efforts to grade the prisoners were made. The garb of the convicts had been, until about 1812, one-half red and one-half blue. Nothing much more ignominious could have been conceived. The second- termers were now garbed in a still more motley fashion, in three- colored garments, distinguished from the clothing of other prisoners by one stripe of red, one of yellow, and one of blue. They ate at separate tables, apart from the other prisoners, had only two warm meals a day, and for the other meal only bread and water, except on Sundays. Third-termers were dressed in four colors, one stripe of yellow, one of red, one of blue and one of black. It is hard to form a picture of such an inharmonious combination of colors, that must 8 Pictures, p. 24. 72 History of American Prisons have looked like a prismatic nightmare, and have transformed the inmate into a deplorable object. The wearer's humiliation and degradation were deliberately sought as one of the purposes of the prison discipline. Later, undoubtedly the many-colored stripes merged into the stripes of black which became in prisons the conventional pattern, alternating with the white stripes or the absence of color. The third-termers also ate separately, performed the most menial and hardest labor, and were allowed to see their friends only twice a year. Still worse was the fate of the retaken convict who had escaped. He was compelled to wear an iron ring on the left leg, to which a clog, attached by a chain, was suspended during the entire term of the prisoner. That the reaction from such extreme severity — to say nothing of the solitary cells that were used for more customary punishment — was such as to fan the prisoners to continued efforts to escape was certain. In 1813 there was an effort to burn the workshops. For this, one of the culprits was chained to a ringbolt for 24 hours. For an attempted escape, George Lynds was compelled to wear an iron jacket for eight days, and to stand in the broad aisle of the chapel with the same on two successive Sundays; to sleep also in solitary confinement for 90 days, and to wear a clog with an iron chain for 82 days afterwards. The echoes of the earlier public punishments and practices in Colonial times are evident in the above. Standing the culprit in a humiliating position before the gaze of the public was customary, as in the stocks, the pillory, or at the tail of a cart. The public display before church-goers on Sunday of the convicted offender was also a frequent punishment, and the stool of penance directly below the minister's pulpit, and in full view of the congregation, was a well-known punishment. Chains and clogs were parapher- nalia of the past. In short, we find in these Massachusetts examples of punishments within the prison a ready adaptation of the older tried-and-true public punishments of the days before State prisons. In the following year the punishment for a serious assault was as follows : ^ "That he wear an iron collar round his neck for 90 days and a clog on his left leg for 6 months, and that during this whole time he be chained to his work-bench; that he sleep in solitary confinement for 6 months, and that during that period he receive only bread and water for his supper; that he be brought into the inner yard on the four succeeding Saturdays, between the hours of three and five in the afternoon, and be placed for one hour on an elevation, and a label on his breast with these words: 'For stabbing two fellow prisoners; that no letter pass to or from him, or that any relative or friend visit him during his confinement, or any convict speak to him; and in case, during the performance of any part of the sentence, he be guilty of any misconduct, such parts of the sentence as have been inflicted be considered as null, and he shall be held to suffer the same over again." And yet, in the face of such unmitigated severity of treatment, we find the board of visitors announcing in its description of » Pictures. History of American Prisons 73 the prison, in 1815, that the keeper should always have in view the reformation of the prisoner. Among the rules then published were the following: Prisoners must not be struck by officers, except in self-defense; Keepers must not swear; The principal keeper has authority to punish offenders by confinement in their own rooms, or in the solitary cells, and by reduction of food. Force is allowed only in self-defense, or when the security of the prison is in danger. Ordinary drinking water only is allowed — but such convicts as are employed at hardest labor may be indulged in small beer at the warden's discretion. Silence is required of convicts when at work. Each officer shall have a gun, a bayonet, 12 cartridges with ball, and the same shall be kept at all times in a safe and convenient place, ready for use. Also a strong and heavy cutlass, to be used as a side arm, shall be worn by the keepers when the prisoners are at work. Moreover, the board went on record in 1815 as expressing the hope of '' promoting the eternal salvation of some individuals, of which every instance is, according to the unerring word of truth, a more important object than the gaining of the whole world.'' This was a quotation from John Howard. But in the same year, the board of visitors stated their theory of prison discipline : **It should be as severe as the principles of humanity will possibly permit. His (the prisoner's) clothes ought to be a means of punishment. He should be cut off from the world, and know nothing of what is happening outside. Whenever a prisoner transgresses, he should be punished until his mind is conquered. Convicts ought to be brought to the situation of clay in the hands of the potter. The guards should consider the prisoner as a volcano, containing lava, which if not kept in subjection, will destroy friends and foe." This was reformation by terrorism. It was no wonder that the prison was at all times a ''volcano, containing lava." The wonder is that reformation could be anticipated under such conditions, which in effect gave over to the executive of the prison almost entire authority to do as he pleased with the inmates. For it was early found possible to charge, in any instance that might be questioned, that the guards and keepers were obliged to act in self-defense. It was in 1815 that the differentiation of garb for the several classes of prisoners was abolished, and the costume, one-half red and one-half blue, was readopted. Those inmates who had pre- viously been confined in the prison wore a number on their back, indicative of the number of times they had been confined in the prison. In 1816, there occurred an insurrection of the convicts, and 16 men got over the walls ; 15 of them were shortly recaptured — undoubtedly to undergo the punishments described above. This outbreak led to the appointment of a military guard, as at Newgate in New York, but after two years it was discontinued. Up to this time, the earnings of the convicts has been able to meet only the expense of their maintenance. This was, it was said, due in part to the poor physical condition of the inmates on their entrance to the prison. Many prisoners were sent to prison for 74 History of American Prisons short terms, or from long distances, and only a small proportion could be used at once in productive employments, even if there had been a sufficiency of suitable labor, which there was not. The long duration of terms of solitary confinement was a financial loss to the prison. Many trades had been experimented with, without result. Shoemaking was practically the only permanently suitable occupation. In this branch, the labor of the convicts was sold at from 40 to 50 cents a day. Inmate labor was let to contractors for whatever purpose the contractors desired. The chief trades in operation, and the number of convicts employed were in 1816 reported to be as follows : 5hoemaking 38 Stone hammering 31 Weaving 31 Tailoring 17 Spike and nail making 26 Brushmaking 12 Oakum picking, a distinctly primitive occupation, was the chief work of those who could be employed at nothing else. Congestion was increasing, as in Newgate and Walnut street, with similar results. By 1816, 300 convicts were living promis- cuously in the Massachusetts State Prison. In some of the rooms four convicts, in others eight, were lodged without any supervision at night. The records of this year show the presence of four inmates under the age of 14 years. A legislative committee in 1817 recommended that because of the intolerable conditions at the prison, it be either abandoned or become a penitentiary house of the type urged by John Howard. Ninety persons were at the time at the prison under commitment for a second, third or fourth time. This legislative committee held that the State Prison should be reserved for the most serious offenders, whose terms were of three years and more. Women and juveniles should be imprisoned in county jails instead of being sent to the State Prison. The present buildings should be substantially enlarged. In various sections of the State there should be Bridewells for the confinement of lesser offenders. One of the chief criticisms by the committee against the peniten- tiary system in this and other States was its expense. It was said that the prisons were not reforming the prisoners, and that they were not supporting themselves. In Pennsylvania, with a popula- tion in Walnut Street Prison of 652 prisoners in December, 1816, the year's cost for the maintenance of prisoners was $45,651; the salaries of the officers amounted to $9,569. The value of the prisoners' labor was but $18,809. In short, the net expense of the year was in Philadelphia $36,411. New York, with a prison population at Newgate of 753, was losing $40,000 a year. The total expense of erecting and supporting the New York State Prison (Newgate) was, up to 1827, $l,237,343.i» Massachusetts, with an average prison population at Charles Town of about 275, lost in 1816, $13,000. In short, the committee felt that the prison was in no way a success. It did not pay, it did not reform, it did not prevent recidivism, and it was an increasing 10 B. p. D. S.. 1827. p. 113. History of American Prisons 75 scandal. There was impending in Massachusetts what during the same period impended and eventuated in Pennsylvania and New York — demoralization, and the movement for a sweeping change in the system. We meet, however, in this same report, a suggestion of a con- structive nature as to the after-care of released prisoners — the first, in point of time, that we have discovered. The Committee sug- gested that there should be erected outside the walls a wooden building, where might be lodged those discharged convicts who were entirely destitute. They could here secure lodgings and meals from the prison at a cheap rate, and have a chance to occupy themselves at their trade until they could find some other employment. But this plan, eminently sensible in an era which gave no official thought whatsoever to the prisoner, once he had passed the prison gate, and sent him out with little or no money with which to try to * ' make good, ' ' found deaf ears in the Legislature. It was again an idea broached far before its time. The commissioners who drafted the above-mentioned report, obviously borrowing the idea from New York, recommended a reclassification of all inmates into three grades, with advancement or degradation at the discretion of the board of visitors. The suggestion was made also that pardons should be conferred only from the first grade. This project was actually worked into law in 1818, but according to Haynes the classification was never judi- ciously employed, and was finally dropped, a system of severity and degradation being substituted.^^ A labored explanation of this action was given in the report of the board of visitors for 1823. According to them, economy and reformation were adverse objects in the establishment of the prison. So the directors had tried a middle course, not sacrificing all hope of amendment among the convicts for a little increase of pecuniary emolument (in the industries), but, on the other hand, not following the illusory prospect of complete reformation by sacrificing to such a theory all regard for economy. The board said flat-footedly that the system of a three-grade classification was impossible, from the standpoint of reformation, and that it was made solely in the interest of finance, to secure greater earning power for the institution. Thus was a radical and constructive project, which decades afterwards in another form became one of the bases of the American reformatory system, calmly and with complete lack of insight dismissed ! Much of the ingenuity that might have gone into the successful development of such a plan as the above seems to have been given over to the devising of new forms of punishment. In 1822 the feasibility of installing a * ' treadmill ' ' was considered. This ingen- ious instrument of English origin operated upon the principle familiar in the dog churn or the squirrel's wheel. The luckless convicts must tread for a specific time daily this * ' discipline mill. ' * " Pictures. 76 History of American Prisons The power therefrom was to be used in the grinding of corn. When it was found that an average of but one bushel a convict per day would be secured, the plan was dropped, not because it was a hard task for the convict, but for its uneconomical features. The first record of a recreational feature we find at this period. In a report of the Massachusetts House of Representatives it was stated that inmates in the rooms lodging from 6 to 10 convicts were allowed occasionally the use of musical instruments, with lights in their rooms. The Prison Discipline Society of Boston showed in 1826 that the prison population was increasing faster, relatively, than the population of the State. Furthermore, with a colored population in the State of less than 7,000, and with only one-seventy-fourth of the population in the State colored, there were 50 colored convicts in the prison, in a total population of 314, or approximately one- sixth. This proportion was similar to the proportions in other States. The record of escapes and outbreaks continued in similar fashion until 1829, at which time the north wing of the new prison building was constructed by the labor of convicts, and the institution began to operate upon the ** Auburn plan." And it was only in this year that the custom ceased of branding, on their discharge, the ''repeaters" at the Massachusetts State Prison with the letters M. S. P. upon the arm.^^ Again a survival of the brutal directness of maiming and mutilating punishments of the Colonial period in Massachusetts ! "Laws of the Commonwealth, 1829. CHAPTER IX THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AUBURN SYSTEM When in 1910 the International Prison Congress, composed of representatives from all over the world of those who deal most intelligently and scientifically with the problems of crime and abnormal behavior, convened for the first time in the United States, a special train, furnished by the United States Government, con- veyed the delegates from over a score of nations to the principal prisons and reformatories of the United States on a tour of inspection and study. No prison was more eagerly visited than Auburn Prison in the city of like name, in the State of New York. For it was here in the west central part of the Empire State, that during the third decade of the nineteenth century a system of prison administration arose that has for a century wielded an enormous and preponderating influence upon prisons and reformatories throughout this country, and has made its influence constantly felt in other lands. The ** silent system" of Auburn Prison is perhaps the best known his- torical feature of American prison history. Auburn Prison produced a type of cellblock and of administra- tion that traveled the country over, found numberless imitators, and conditioned prison architecture for nearly a century in this country. The two most recent examples of completed State prisons — in New York, at Great Meadow, and in Minnesota, at Stillwater — are conspicuous examples of the developed '' Auburn plan" of cellular architecture, in which the cells are enclosed within a great containing building, the cells being back to back, several tiers in height, and therefore designated as the ''inside-cell" type of con- struction. They are of steel, large, airy, and sanitary, in contrast to the early cramped, dark, half-airless, unsanitary cells of the original Auburn wing. But the relationship is there — and it is against that century-old type of cellblock architecture that during the last decade a spirited fight has been waged in our country for a more individualistic, humaner, more private kind of cell. Of all this we shall speak in detail when we come to a discussion of the celebrated contest between the advocates of the ''Auburn system" and the "Pennsylvania system," that developed when the new prisons in New York and Pennsylvania were opened, and when two entirely different forms of construction and administration engaged the active interest and attention of State after State, desperately hunting for some form of prison regime, and architec- ture that would meet the needs of a commonwealth in despair at the demoralization of an older system, tried and found wholly wanting. The period of prison administration that we are now entering, the decade from 1820 to 1830, is perhaps as engrossing to the [77] 78 History of American Prisons student of prison matters as any period of the nineteenth century. It is the decade in which our prison system develops a second time with striking rapidity, and in which administration becomes organ- ized and standardized for the first time — so definitely standard- ized, indeed, that a century has hardly sufiiced to change many of the methods and habits then instituted. Indeed, American prisons cannot be understood with any clearness unless this particular period is understood. Origins of the majority of even recent prison practices in administration can be traced back to this decade. It is the era that the popular mind has supposed gave birth to the American prison system. Yet, as we shall see, this is the decade in which the insurgent and reactionary movement against the failure of the first prison system found its expression, and in which the pendulum swung to such an opposite extreme that there was fastened upon this country a system replete with severity, regu- larity, perpetual silence, and the domination by the prison author!^ ties of the inmate 's body and spirit. Within relatively few years of 1816, when the State of New York began the construction at Auburn of the new prison for the western part of the State,. the ** Auburn system" was already hailed as the long-hoped-for solution of all penological ills. It had the beauty of a finely functioning machine. It had reduced the human beings within the prison to automata. In less than ten years from the date of its origin, it had already become a model. In 1826, the Prison Discipline Society of Boston (a philanthropic organization, that had just sprung into existence) asked in its first annual report : ^ **What could with propriety be done for criminals that is not done at Auburn? Here is exhibited what Europe and America have long been waiting^ to see, a prison which may be a model of imitation." In the United States, Sing Sing Prison has enjoyed the perhaps doubtful fame of being the best-known penal institution, and alsa perhaps the most notorious. But it was Auburn — and the Eastern, Penitentiary of Pennsylvania — to which distinguished European visitors, studying prison administration, came in the period between 1830 and 1840. France, England, Prussia and Canada studied our contributions to penology. It was our American institutions that conditioned in large measure the subsequent construction of English and Continental prisons. And, finally, it was by the working out of poetic justice — if such a term may be used in prison history — in Auburn Prison,, where the famous system had had its birth, that Thomas Mott Osborne in 1913 and 1914 gave to many of the stupid and cruel remnants of that original system, handed down through the century and flourishing lustily not ten years ago, their death blow.^ Let us therefore approach with especial interest this period of unusual historical import. It was revolt against the appalling failure of an earlier penitentiary system that led to the surprising developments of the new system. Indeed, as de Beaumont and 1 B. p. D. S., 1826, p. 27. 8 T. M. Osborne. " Within Prison Walls." History of American Prisons 79 de Tocqueville, sagacious and sympathetic critics of our American prison systems in the thirties of the nineteenth century, said, the experiences of Walnut street in Philadelphia and Newgate in New York, and Charlestown in Massachusetts had led, not to a peniten- tiary system, hut to a had system of imprisonment,^ a system which was **in general ruinous to the public treasury; it never effected the reforma- tion of the prisoners; every year the legislature of each State voted consider- ble sums toward the support of the penitentiaries, and the continued return of the same individuals into the prisons proved the inefficiency of the system to which they were submitted." However, Auburn Prison did not start as an iconoclastic, insur- gent institution. It was no deviation, at first, from the conventional construction of the times. That part of it which was built between 1816 and 1819 was put up on traditional lines. It contained 28 rooms, each intended to house from 8 to 12 prisoners. There were, in addition, 61 cells, each destined for one convict, or for two if necessary * — a powerful invitation to vice and dishonesty. The first warden of Auburn was Captain William Brittin, appointed in 1818. His principal keeper — the disciplinarian and general routine manager of the prison — was Captain Elam Lynds. Captain Brittin was a master carpenter, who had been at first employed by the commissioners to build the prison. Captain Lynds we shall find to be the outstanding figure in American prison history during the decade from 1820 to 1830, and one of the men still quoted as a pioneer. The prison was governed by a board of five inspectors, residing iaJJ^ village of Auburn, and appointed for two years by the Oovernbr and the Senate. They received no compensation. They appointed the * * agent and keeper, ' ' the two offices being combined, and designated by us in this study by the generic term : ''Warden.'* In 1819, the Legislature of New York, on the recommendation of Governor DeWitt Clinton,® ordered the erection at Auburn Prison of an additional wing, made up wholly of solitary cells. This northern wing was finished in 1821. The present American prison system grew out of those solitary cells at Auburn Prison. It was this new wing that became the model for American prisons. In 1821, Captain Brittin died, and Captain Lynds, who had been a hatmaker in Auburn,^ was appointed agent and keeper — a com- bination really of two functions, and a title that has survived until to-day in New York State prisons. In the earliest years of the new prison at Auburn, the wages were small, and the dangers great. Captain Brittin, for being both warden and master carpenter, received an annual salary of $1,800, but other wages were as follows : Deputy Keeper $450 Chaplain 125 Clerk 450 Surgeon 200 Turnkey 350 2 Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 22. * B. and T., footnote, p. 4. Also Julius. S. Z., p. 141. "Julius. S. Z.. p. 142. « Governor's Message in Journal of New York Assembly, 1819, p. 18. 80 History of American Prisons In 1819, three years after the establishment of the prison, while construction was still going on, the board of inspectors, alarmed at the possibility of outbreaks, recommended the organization in the village of Auburn of an independent company of militia, to be composed of 30 privates and several officers, whose duty it should be to assemble at the first alarm and rush to the prison. Indeed, both Captain Brittin and Captain Lynds had been officers in the recent war with Great Britain. In 1821, the New York Legislature made mandatory a three-fold grading of inmates at Auburn prison, in an effort to rectify prison abuses. The first class was composed of the most hardened and vicious criminals, who were to be confined to solitary confinement, without any labor whatsoever to distract their minds. The second class, more corrigible, were to alternate between solitary confine- ment, and labor as a recreation. The third class, being the most hopeful, were to work in association during the day, and to be in seclusion at night. Here was a new method proposed for classification — one that became in time, so far as the third class of inmates was concerned, a standard for the entire country, with the exception of one prison, the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, which adhered to absolute separation of each inmate from the other at all times. No prison prior to the plan proposed for Auburn Prison had worked its inmates during the day in association, and locked them up in separate cells at night. Exactly this combination of day-association and night-separation became the keystone of the Auburn system?^ Who the inventor of this method of classification was is lost in doubt. Even in 1832, when de Beaumont and de Tocqueville pub- lished their account of their studies of American penal institutions, they could not dispel the obscurity. The noted French visitors asked whether it might not have been Governor De Witt Clinton, or Mr. Cray (one of the board of inspectors), or Captain Brittin, who, according to Gershom • Powers (himself a later warden at Auburn) was largely the initiator of the Auburn methods of prison construction and of discipline. Or was it Captain Lynds, to whom public opinion at the time seems to have attributed the system? According to Julius, the Prussian scholar who in 1839 published hi^ study of American social conditions, Cray developed the Auburn system in 1823,^ after the tragic failure of the system of solitary confinement, which we shall shortly describe. And who was the inventor of the Auburn type of prison build- ing, which became the standard type of structure for practically all American prison cellblocks for nearly a century ? Even to-day, the great new prisons at Great Meadow, New York, and Stillwater, Minnesota, are but the latest developments of the original Auburn type of ' ' interior cellblock ' ' ; they have an abundance of light and air, and their cells are of steel and of considerable size, radical improvements in every way upon the catacomb-like pile of masonry ' Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 142. History of American Prisons 81 of the original cellblock at Auburn. But the line of descent is direct. Where did the type arise ? Was it original with Auburn ? Who was the builder, and what were his models ? Gershom Powers wrote thus, in 1828: **I know not who was justly entitled to the distinguished credit of having discovered the invaluable principle upon which our north wing of cells is constructed. Captain Brittin claimed it during his lifetime, and his friends for him, after his death. Another master builder, now of Montreal, also made the same claim, which was said to have been favored by the opinion of Governor Clinton. Captain Brittin however, was the first who applied the principle practically, and constructed the first block of cells upon the present general plan.'* It is noteworthy that no mention is made by Powers of any par- ticipation in this plan by Captain Lynds, to whom much of the creation of the Auburn plan and system has been attributed. Doctor Julius, a visitor from Prussia, wrote on his return to Prussia in 1833 that the American reformatory system, ** concerning which there has been so much talk in Europe during the last forty years,'* was, so far as the Auburn system was concerned, undertaken at the prison in Ghent in Flanders in 1791, on the lines laid down by Count Vilain XIV, and was introduced into America in 1820 by the building of the north wing of Auburn Prison. For the Ghent prison maintained separate confinement of prison- ers at night, associated work during the day, and perpetual silence. It is hardly to be doubted that echoes of the Ghent system, described and discussed in many European treatises of the time, reached this country. John Howard had described Ghent as a model prison in structure and administration. Gloucester Prison in England was authorized in 1785, and maintained separation of prisoners day and night. Milbank Prison in London was built in 1812 on a modified Howard plan. Here, solitary confinement was complete. Yet we find Governor Everett of Massachusetts stating in 1836 that there was no evidence that the Ghent plan awoke general attention, or that it was imitated elsewhere than in Europe. In 1821, in obedience to the Legislature, and, ironically enough, on Christmas Day, eighty of the worst convicts within the new prison, almost half of the total population, were condemned hence- forth to silence and to solitude without work, and with no com- panion save the Bible. Let us recall that three years before in Pennsylvania, the decision had been reached to erect a prison at Pittsburg on the same basis of administration. The board of inspectors of Auburn Prison pledged their adher- ence to their **new system" in the following words in 1821 — a profession of penological faith that for deliberate elimination of hope can scarcely be equalled : **The end and design of the law is the prevention of crimes, through fear of punishment, the reformation of offenders being of minor consideration. . . . Let the most obdurate and guilty felons be immured in solitary cells and dungeons; let them have pure air, wholesome food, comfortable clothing, and medical aid when necessary; cut them off from all intercourse y with men; let not the voice or face of a friend ever cheer them; let them walk their gloomy abodes, and commune with their corrupt hearts and guilty consciences in silence, and brood over the horrors of their solitude, and the enormity of their crimes, without the hope of executive pardon." 82 History of American Prisons One has but to ask himself how long, under such unvarying sepa- ration from all human contact and feelings, one would retain his faith, and even his sanity? Indeed, this sentence to nothing less than a living death, and to the perpetual horrors of solitude without anything to do, drove irresistibly toward madness. By the end of a year and a half : **a number of the convicts became insane while in solitude; one was so des- perate that he sprang from his cell, when the door was opened, and threw himself from the gallery upon the pavement, which nearly killed him, and he y undoubtedly would have destroyed his life instantly, had not an intervening stovepipe broken the force of his fall. Another beat and mangled his head against the walls of his cell until he destroyed one of his eyes. ' ' * Such an outcome hondfied^tbe. State. Governor Yates, who on an official visit to Auburn Prison had been an eye-witness to this alarming physical and mental result of the eighteen months of solitary confinement of these miserable victims of a new theory of punishment ordered the abandonment of the system. By the end of 1823 he had pardoned most of the survivors. But the end of the gruesome story was not yet, for though they had gone out of the prison on the ground that they had had sufficient punishment, the subsequent careers of many of the released men were criminal ones. The terrible effects of constant solitude had not made them honest, but they had been broken. One released inmate committed a burglary on the first night of his release. Twelve of the released men were ultimately reconvicted and returned to Auburn.^ Here was a noteworthy and notorious trial of the effects of solitary confinement. Method after method had now been tried in prison administration, and had been found wanting in beneficent results. The humane discipline of the early Quakers at Walnut Street had eventuated in partisan politics, the evils of congestion, and the demoralization of the inmates. The rigors of Newgate in Connecticut had become a scandal in the community. Massachu- setts, with severity of treatment and a disregard of reformative methods, had developed a prison that was also a scandal. And now, with the extreme application of solitary confinement without labor, only a year and a half was needed to prove that, literally, madness lay that way. What was now to be the solution? Nor, were other States more successful in their experiments with solitary confinement. In Virginia, when the Governor ceased to pardon convicts, it was stated that in no case did any convict sur- vive a serious attack of disease. Their only hope in the enduring of their misery had been the ultimate possibility of freedom through a pardon. In the State prison of Maine, at Thomaston, wherein the law provided for the solitary confinement of certain convicts during long periods, the prison physician stated that the majority of such inmates spent more than half their term of confinement in the prison hospital, it being the custom of that prison to take the inmates from the solitary cells to the hospital, in order to restore them sufficiently to be ag ain placed in solitary confinement ! ^^ 8 Gershom Powers. General Description of Auburn Prison, 1826, p. 83. » Powers, p. 83. 10 B. P. D. S., 1827. History of American Prisons 8^ We do not believe it necessary to take time, to-day, to argue the barbarous and futile nature of long-enduring solitary confinement without labor. Only the exceptionally strong-minded or the greatly dulled intelligence might seemingly endure such confinement long. That way, disease and madness lay. Yet, so violent were the reaction and the indignation against the then prevailing abomina- tions of the older prisons, where inmates congregated in idleness, that eminent citizens like Roberts Vaux of Philadelphia, and a representative senate committee of New York, recommended such absolute separation of the most hardened convicts, not only from each other, but from any chance of employment.^^ Even Edward Livingston, distinguished jurist and author of the remarkable draft of a penal code and a code of prison discipline for Louisiana in the twenties of the nineteenth century, was a strong advocate of silent and uninterrupted separation of convicts, without work. There was great theorizing in matters of penology at this period. Was it not known that the martyrs and the political intriguers had endured constant solitary confinement for years? To which argument Gershom Powers, warden of Auburn Prison, replied in 1828 that the example of martyrs and patriots who had endured similar conditions successfully was no criterion, because such persons are sustained by devotion to liberty or to religion in a righteous cause, while the criminal has no high moral sanction to lend strength to his struggle for endurance.^^ In the last analysis, however, the agitation for the establishment of such solitary confinement was caused by the realization that • something had to be done to secure a prison system that would work ! In the prison at Auburn, prior to the experiment in solitary confinement, conditions had been atrocious. Pardon-brokerage was - the steady and profitable business of many persons. In 1821, 41 convicts had been pardoned, and only 9 convicts were discharged by expiration of their sentence. Moreover, the discipline of the prison had become very lax. In 1882, 75 convicts who had been sent away some miles from the prison to work on the '* Great Canal" that was then being constructed through the State, all escaped.^^ Therefore the inspectors stated, in all soberness, that in their new effort to make prison life and its punishments terroristic, they were attempting the salvation of the prisoner. The long-expected was also happening. It was now often being urged that there should be a general return to bloody and grievous corporal punishments, or to a wide extension of the use of capital punishment. Or even to transportation to some distant part of the United States, or to some lone island in the Pacific.^^ The relative leniency of the first prison system, followed by such a discouraging succession of failures of treatment, was already there- fore in danger of being superseded by an abhorrent revival of medieval methods of punishment. 1^ Letter from Gershom Powers, etc. 12 Report of New York Senate Comm., 1823. 18 Report on Penitentiary System, 1822, p. 76ff. " Reports of the Inspectors. 84 History of American Prisons Thomas Eddy, who as we know had been the first warden of the New York State Prison, and who was renowned as a philan- thropist, adhered to the then accepted theory of rigorous discipline of convicts. In a document citing the fourth annual report of the London Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, he quoted the European authority : "The committee are of the opinion that severe punishment must form the basis of an effective system of prison discipline. The personal sufferings of the offender must be the first consideration, as well for his own interest as for the sake of example. The Society (of London) recommends a system /of hard labor and regular employment, a system in which spare diet and occasional solitary confinement and habits of order and silence are steadily enforced. ' ' It is easy to see from the above how sanction was secured for the unmitigated severities of the Auburn system, which within comparatively few years was found to depend, for its continued success, upon the lash. Furthermore, the London Society argued that the prisoners should not be allowed to share in their earnings, because the hope of recompense would mitigate the severity of their punishment! "It is as unwarrantable to mitigate the force, and soften tlie rigour, of that punishment which the laws inflict, as to increase its penalties. It never can be proper that the criminal should quit confinement with emolument derived from conduct, which the discipline of the prison should compel him to maintain ... If prisoners expend a portion of their earnings in food, the efficacy of restricted diet is counteracted, and frequently wholly lost.'' In short, there was being evolved, as we shall more clearly see in the pages to come, a system of discipline in which the convict •was deprived of any inducements whatsoever to conduct himself properly in prison, save that he might escape actual physical punishments. The prison was to be, in brief, a place of terror. Yet, the London Society conceded that on the discharge of the convict, he might be furnished some relief in cash. At this psychological moment events occurred, which together undoubtedly went far to determine the course of prison history for the century to follow. The first influence was the report of the ^ Senate Committee of 1822, relative to the reorganization of the State Prison in New York, which we have already discussed in the chapter on Newgate in New York. (Page 43.) The second influence was the publication of a detailed report by the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in 1^1822 on the Penitentiary System of the United States. The third factor was the independent and aggressive effort being made within Auburn Prison itself to arrive at a workable system of prison administration. The New York Society for the Prevention of Pauperism organ- ^ized 1818 or 1819, was an association of representative citizens in New York city, who had been led into the study of crime and delinquency through their inquiries into the causes of pauperism. This Society played, as we shall see in a later chapter, a very important role in the foundation of the House of Refuge in New A History of American Prisons 85 York, the first juvenile reformatory in the United States. We shall now discuss the special report of a committee of this Society- published in 1822, and containing a wealth of material gathered from governors, wardens, inspectors, and many other citizens. We have here one of the earliest surveys of a social problem in the field of delinquency by a civic and philanthropic organization. The report of the committee, after arraigning with cumulative and undeniable facts the prevailing prison conditions, held it imperative that a new system of prison discipline should be estab- lished, in which the principal elements should be: Solitary confinement. Hard labor. Moral instruction and discipline. The committee maintained, in amplification of the above, that the^ internal structure of existing prisons should be so changed as to \ provide the largest number of single and separate cells. Solitary / confinement of prisoners without labor should be resorted to only / for a certain length of time in the case of hardened convicts, or for / punishment. All other prisoners should work in their cells. For ( each prisoner there must be provided, therefore, a separate cell. \ This plan, we would mention here, was the one finally adopted I and exemplified in the administration of the Eastern Penitentiary y of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Failing the possibility of providing a sufficiency of separate cells, a classification of prisoners along rigid lines should be insti- tuted. Young and old, hardened criminals and novices, should be separated from each other. There should be silence at all times, so far as that could be maintained. The wholesale granting of pardons should be done away with. ^ Prisoners should not be led to expect reduction of sentence through pardons. Prison officials, especially the keepers and guards, should be more carefully appointed. Much of the corruption within the prison arose from the complicity of officials in the criminals' acts in the institution. Furthermore, the cancer of idleness and sloth should be extirpated by hard labor. Prisoners in the old prisons were loafing, and were contriving crimes in their associated idle- ness. Hard labor was indispensable in any reform of the prison system. Nor should the prison be regarded as primarily a financial under- taking or problem. Less attention should be given to making the institution a self-supporting prison, and more attention to enforcing a stern and rigid discipline, for the ultimate benefit and possible reformation of the inmates themselves. While the diet should be suitable, and while undeviating cleanliness should be observed, there should be nothing incident to the prison life that might be either pleasant or inviting! "A penitentiary should be a place where everything conspires to punish the guilty." Extreme but orderly severity should characterize the new prison system. In the above outline was published for the first time a definite program for prison reform by an organization of citizens banded 86 History of American Prisons together for philanthropic purposes. Solitary confinement and hard labor were the two chief elements of the proposed system. Or, in the absence of such possibilities, a reversion to the most severe classifications of the past. One other, and highly important, recommendation was that there should be established a separate correctional institution for juvenile offenders, and that they should no longer be sent to State prison. Within two years the House of Refuge in New York city was established. Meanwhile, at Auburn Prison, there was being developed a system, after the failure of the solitary system without labor, that was quite different from any then in practice in the United States. By 1823, the so-called ''Auburn system" was in full operation. It provided for the separate confinement of each prisoner in silence in his individual cell at night, and for the work of the prisoners in association in silence during the day. The old prisons com- mingled their inmates day and night in large workrooms and night- rooms. Here at Auburn, there had arisen now a system that grouped the prisoners during the day for maximum industrial production, and separated them absolutely at night for the maxi- mum prevention of contamination or of plotting against the safety of the institution, or for escape. **Let those prisoners who are not in solitary confinement," said the inspectors, be allowed to work, under a discipline so rigid as to prevent all conversation with each other, and be compelled to perform as much labor yas their health and constitutions will permit. Under such a system of pun- ishments the State's prison horrors would be seen, and its terror felt in the community; and if it failed to reform offenders, it would at least drive them from that government, whose laws they had violated, the certain and severe penalty of which they had thus been made to realize." The board reported as early as 1823, however, that it was not in favor of a grading system. ''Prison officials should be relieved of the classification of convicts. Sentences of the courts should be more definite and should be strictly executed." The system of grading was not long followed out at Auburn. The theory of the ' ' Auburn system ' ' was simplicity itself. Main- tain silence at all times, and you remove absolutely from prisoners the chance to corrupt each other. They can do each other no damage by their physical proximity, but, if granted communication ^ with each other, they become a force for evil and an ever-present source of insurrection and riot. If perpetual silence be maintained, there is no reason why prisoners should not work in the shops in association during the day. Prisoners must be employed. Prisoners are sent to prison to do hard labor. It is a part of the sentence. The shops are the logical places of employment. Any scheme for employing prisoners separately in their own cells is economically unsound. Prisons should, so far as is compatible with the proper treatment of inmates, be made to pay expenses. In short, the keystone of the Auburn system was silence! This /was the new element, introduced to solve the prison problem. And J within a year it actually seemed as if a new era in prison admin- istration had come. Hard work during the day had supplanted History of American Prisons 87 idleness at Auburn. Hard work was productive, healthy, and taught the inmates the principles of self-support against the time when they should be discharged from prison. Hard work had reformative value. Was it not an edict from on high that man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow ? Had not this very United States been made possible by the hard labor of settlers in a frontier land? Was there any reason why men in prison should not work at least as hard as the honest, God-fearing supporter of a family on the outside ? And the silence that was perpetually required of the convicts seemed admirable. Evil communications corrupt good manners. No longer would there be heard in prison yard or night-room the foul-mouthed recidivists of the Newgate type! Such men were dangerous and wicked criminals, thinking and plotting escapes, riots and the contamination of others. Rob them of their power of communication and you remove from them their deadliest weapon ! Discipline was found to be rendered much easier by silence. Cap- tain Basil Hall, a chaplain of the British Royal Navy, visiting Auburn Prison about 1829, admired the unbroken silence, saying that it was as profound as if the workmen had been made of the marble which they were employed in hewing.^^ The Prison Discipline Society, founded in Boston in 1825, cham- pioned the Auburn system from the start. The following graphic y picture was given in the first annual report of the Society in 1826 of the daily routine in Auburn Prison : ^^ **The unremitted industry, the entire subordination, and subdued feeling among the convicts, has probably no parallel among any equal number of convicts. In their solitary cells, they spend the night with no other book than the Bible, and at sunrise they proceed in military order, under the eye of the turnkey, in solid columns, with the lock march to the workshops, thence in the same order at the hour of breakfast, to the common hall, where they partake of their wholesome and frugal meal in silence. Not even a whisper might be heard through the whole apartment. * * Convicts are seated in single file, at narrow tables with their backs toward the center, so that there can be no interchange of signs. If one has more food than he wants, he raises his left hand, and if another has less, he raises his right hand, and the waiter changes it. When they have done eating, at the ringing of a bell, of the softest sound, they rise from the table, form in solid columns, and return under the eyes of the turnkeys to the workshops. "From one end of the shops to the other, it is the testimony of many witnesses that they have passed more than three hundred convicts without seeing one leave his work, or turn his head to gaze at them. There is the most perfect attention to business from morning till night, interrupted only by the time, necessary to dine — and never by the fact that the whole body of prisoners have done their tasks and the time is now their own, and they can do as they please. **At the close of the day, a little before sunset, the work is all laid aside, at once, and the convicts return in military order, to the silent cells where they partake of their frugal meal, which they are permitted to take from the kitchen, where it is furnished for them, as they returned from the shop. After supper, they can, if they choose, read the scriptures, undisturbed, and can reflect in silence on the error of their lives. They must not disturb their fellow prisoners by even a whisper. The feelings which the convicts " B. P. D. S., 1828. i« Same, 1826, p. 36. 88 History of American Prisons exhibit to their religious teacher are generally subdued feelings. . . . The men attend to their business from the rising to the setting of the sun, and spend the night in solitude/' De Metz and Blouet, reporting in 1837 their study of American prisons, said of the prisoners at Auburn : 'I They march very close together, one hand on the shoulders of the pre- ceding convict, and all turning their head in the direction of the guard. They mark time until commanded to cease.'* A picture familiar to many persons still living, who remember the lockstep customary, until relatively recently, in American prisons. As late as 1910, the writer of this study, in visiting Auburn Prison, found many of the above methods of daily routine surviving. There was substantial, if not unremitted, industry. There was silence, prevailing throughout the institution. The inmates ate in a gloomy basement messhall, all facing in one direction, as is described in the above excerpt from the report of the Prison Dis- cipline Society of a hundred years ago. The stripes had gone, but the men marched in somber silence to and from their work. Silence prevailed in the cellhouse at night, and the very same structure that had housed the inmates in 1826 was still in active use, with the same wretchedly small cells. At work, the inmates in the shops were still prohibited from lifting their eyes and gazing at the passing visitor. So strong was the power of survival of the methods fastened upon American prisons by the sudden and almost complete domination of the Auburn system! Yet, the principle of silence has been from time to time challenged during the century that has gone. As early as 1837, in Miss Harriett Martineau's ''Society in America," she expressed her strong doubt as to the reasonableness of the silent system. "Talking is an innocent act, and an unavoidable act. The prisoners ought to talk, and they do. It is surprising to me that any effectual reforma- tion can be looked upon from men who have the prohibition to speak set up before their minds as the chief circumstance and interest of their lives for five, seven, or ten years. How the disordered being is to be rectified, how the prostrated conscience is to be reinstated, while an innocent and necessary act is thus erected into an offense, I leave those who are most versed on moral proportions to decide." However, silence has reigned literally in prisons and reforma- tories, practically into the present day. The writer of this study was fortunate in being able to aid in bringing about the abandon- ment of the silent system in one of the New York prisons less than ten years ago. The absurdity of preserving the silent system at meals, when on the farm at Great Meadow Prison the men talked freely with each other, as well as in the recreation hours in the prison yard, showed simply the extent to which tradition ruled in a custom that no longer had a ground for existence. And it is, or was until recently at least, to be chronicled regarding a mid- western prison that, conceding something to modern theories, the inmates were permitted to talk on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at table, but were required to keep silence on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, or vice versa! History of American Prisons 89 The great success of the Auburn system lay in the fact that it worked ! By 1828, so many distinguished visitors from both Amer- ica and Europe had visited the prison that the warden then in command, Gershom Powers, published a book of general informa- y/^ tion about the prison.^^ Powers believed absolutely in a repressive institution. The principal duties of the convicts were to obey orders, and to labor diligently in silence. They were not to sing, dance, whistle, run, jump, or do anything that would have the least tendency to disturb or alarm the prison.^^ Unquestionably the overwhelming silence of the place, and the unswerving order of the inmates, were the two most profound impressions made upon visitors. De Beaumont and de Tocqueville wrote that the silence at night in the great cellblock was that of death : **We have often during the night trod those monotonous and dumb gal- leries, where a lamp was always burning; we felt as if we traversed catacombs; there were a thousand living beings, and yet it was a desert solitude. ' ' " According to William Crawford,^® the English visitor in 1832, Auburn Prison occupied a plot of ground forming a square 500 feet in length either way, enclosed by a boundary wall 2,000 feet long, 30 feet high, and 4 feet thick at the base. The power for the prison was had from a small creek on the south. The prison looked / to Crawford like a great manufacturing plant. He held the con- v/ struction of the prison to be defective, because there was no central point where the prison could be in general overseen and inspected. The total expense of construction of the prison, without including the labor of the convicts, was above $300,000.^^ The prison buildings formed three sides of the square. The front of the prison was 280 feet long, and each wing was 240 feet long, and 45 feet deep. The keeper's house was four stories high in the middle of the front of the prison. The south wing of the prison was built with passages on one side of the building, and large rooms on the other. Half of this south wing was given over to a dining hall, and chapel made out of the old rooms, for this was the original building at Auburn. In addition, the south wing was rebuilt to allow of a kitchen and the female department. By 1825, the north wing had been completed. This was five stories high, and was 42 feet in height. The passageway between the walls of the prison building and the cells was 9 feet in width, the cells themselves 7% feet long, 3.8 feet wide, and 7 feet high. There were 550 cells. The floors were of oak planks on brick arches. The external walls were of stone, 2% feet thick. The middle wall, between the banks of cells, was two feet thick; the partition walls between the cells one foot thick. In the walls of the building were large grated windows. The doors of the cells were of oak planks, " Powers. Report, p. 24. *8 A General Description of Auburn Prison. i^B. and T.. p. 32. 20 Crawford, pp. 24flf. " G. Powers. Report, p. 5. 90 History of American Prisons bound together with iron ; the upper part was of iron grating. The gallery just outside the cells, above the ground floor cells, was three feet wide. The convicts slept in hammocks in the cells made of imported canvas, stretched by cords, and hung by the corners on hooks, rather loosely, or stretched tightly on long narrow wooden frames, which lay flat at night, and were turned up edgewise during the day. The hammocks were discarded within a few years from the beginning of the new system of Auburn Prison, because they occasioned pain in the breast and limbs. There was a so-called ventilator in the cell, with a pipe 21^ inches in diameter, with a flue to the roof. The ventilation was defective. The air pipes allowed conversation between the cells, which defeated the basis of the Auburn plan of silence. The heat- ing of the cells was said by Crawford not to be in general difficult. There were stoves in the area outside the tiers of cells. There were new cells in the south wing erected in 1822, 220 in all in this building. This made a total of 770 cells at Auburn Prison. In the new cells there were set iron-grated doors from top to bottom. By a curious arrangement, the doors were set into the recess of the cells almost two feet. The workshops were in the rear of the prison. The entire length of range of the workshops was nearly 2,000 feet. The passageway, whereby the visitors and guards could supervise or see the prisoners at work, was introduced in 1828, and was 2 feet 6 inches wide. The convicts did not face each other when at work. There were two reservoirs in the yard, in one of which the prisoners could bathe in summer. The usual dress of the convicts consisted of vest and trousers, striped, made of cotton and wool, and made in prison. The cap was of the same material. The shirt was of cotton. The prisoners wore knitted woolen socks, and leather shoes. The annual expense of clothing the prisoners was $5.87. The contract price for the pris- oner's food was 5 l-40th cents per day. There was fresh beef once a week. The following typical meals were cited by Crawford: Breakfast: Cold meat, bread, cold hominy, hot potato, pint of rye coffee, sweetened with molasses. Dinner: Meat, soup from broth thickened with Indian meal, bread, potato. According to Powers, the rations per man per day were as follows : ^^ 10 oz. pork or 16 oz. beef. 10 oz. wheat flour. 12 oz. Indian meal. % gill molasses. 2 qts. rye. 4 qts. vinegar. 2% bushels potatoes. 4 qts. salt. 1% oz. pepper. } Daily. > Per 100 rations. 22 Powers. Report, p. 43. History of American Prisons 91 Salt pork and salt beef was furnished alternately each three days, and fresh beef once each week. In the morning there was cold meat, bread, slice of cold hominy and hot potatoes. Also a pint of hot rye coffee, sweetened with molasses. For dinner meat, soup made from the broth, thickened with Indian meal, hot potatoes, and cold water to drink. The prison was governed by a board of inspectors, who were appointed for two years. They received no compensation. They had the power of removing the warden (called *' Agent ")» deputy keeper and all subordinates. The salary of the agent was $1,250, and he was bonded for $25,000. The deputy keeper was the s/ *' principal keeper" of to-day. There were 20 assistant keepers and 10 guards, including a sergeant. The prison at this time would have a population of 770 if full.^^ The construction of the prison was such that the entire interior central yard could be surveyed at a glance. Visitors were not permitted to pass through the shops, but the wall in the rear of the shops was so constructed as to afford space for a narrow passage- way, made light by numerous small orifices, through which not only keepers, but the many visitors could survey the convicts at work, without the knowledge of the latter. Each visitor paid twenty-five cents as admission fee, and the total income from this source in Auburn in 1830 was $1,524. The visiting of prisons by the public was possible to all, according to de Beaumont and de Tocqueville.^* As early as 1822, the board of inspectors of Auburn had raised the price of admission for visitors from 12% cents to 25 cents, on the novel ground that visitors might thereby be discouraged from attending in such numbers; the visitors were acquiring the idea, from the appearance of the prison, that prison life was not so hard and severe as was commonly thought ! On the other hand, all visitors should not be excluded, for then the public would regard the prison as a Bastile or inquisition ! Said de Beaumont and de Tocqueville : ** These establishments in the United States are considered as belonging to all. The prisons are open to every one who chooses to inspect them, except in the Penitentiary at Philadelphia, where it is not permitted to see y the prisoners, because the visits of the public would be in direct contradiction to the principle of absolute solitude, which forms the foundation of the system. ' ' ^*' The Auburn System demanded absolute separation of the pris- oner from the world. No communication with or from friends or relatives was allowed the convicts save under most exceptional circumstances, but the family of the prisoner might, on inquiry, learn of the inmate 's condition, and might also, like other visitors, walk, along the passageway behind the walls of the shop and see the prisoner at work, though unobserved by him.^^ The news of the outside world was practically shut off, and the inmate was consigned to a practical oblivion.^^ 23 Crawford, p. 26. «* B. and T., p. 30. " Gershom Powers. Report, p. 17. 2» Same, p. 34. 92 History of American Prisons Hard labor, under this new system, became a fetish. Hard work ^ -was the rule of life outside the prison. If the prison could be made less costly by the labor of the prisoner, hard work should be the Vrule inside the prison. All of the prisoner's time was held to belong to the State.^^ If society had the right to take away his liberty, it had also the right to control his labor. The prisoners must work all the time during working hours. There was no over-stint — no task, after the regular day 's assignment of work mis done, at which they / might earn a small bonus for themselves. »Such perquisites were I deemed highly demoralizing factors in the old prisons, the means of v^ I the bribery of officers, of gambling, and of the purchase of smair v^luxuriesj So here at Auburn, work must go on unremittedly, and without any compensation to the prisoner. Those soft-hearted persons who would make a prison anything but most rigorous were condemned as follows : **Led too far by their theories, their sympathies seem to be all on the side of the convicts; and the comforts and conveniences that they would place in the way of the criminal, to induce him to reform, are so great, as . to render his situation incomparably more pleasant and gratifying than that .cV^ of many honest persons in the community who have never violated the ^'^ laws.''^ In order effectively to block any chance for the convict to have converse even within the prison with other persons, it was provided that *'no assistant keeper shall hold commonplace conversation with convicts, or allow them to speak to him on any subject, except on necessary business. ' ' ** There is in this protest of those who rebelled at alleviating and reformative influences in prison a constantly recurring comment and criticism of mild prison methods. The situation has always been clearly seen, but the solution has been difficult. The trouble has always arisen from the fact that the prison has, in the minds of different members of the public, different functions. If it is simply to punish, then punishments grievous and even torturing in their nature are admissible, according to the degree of punish- ment regarded as necessary and within the law. If the prison is primarily a money-earning institution, then the hard labor of the prisoners is the most important consideration, and all else must be subordinated to that achievement. If the prison is to reform, then it must be determined what are the elements making for reform, and they must be applied in proper balance. If to reform a prisoner it is necessary to educate him, the time given to education must be . taken out of time that might be given to labor. If reform is to \ come through the application of humane principles of treatment, I then punishments must yield to other methods, when possible. It is, I in short, the clash of the several prominent "interests" of the ? prison program that has ever and again confused the prison problem. But, as in the new system of Auburn Prison, there appear at times champions of a reformatory treatment who adhere to a belief ^ B. P. D. S., 1833. 2« Wharton-Shaler-King. Report. 28 Same, p. 20. r History of American Prisons 93 in most rigorous methods as the surest reformative influences. Reformation by horror, constant hard labor, and by the breaking of the spirit, was the Auburn method. And the Boston Prison Discipline Society, progressive in its day, held that prisoners should defray by the fruits of their own labor in prison their expenses of food and clothing, medical care, moral and religious instruction, v^ if possible the salaries of the officers and guards, and also the expenses of their own conviction and transportation.^^ If, then, there were no inducements in the form of privileges at Auburn Prison that might be earned by the prisoners for work performed, there must obviously be some compelling force to secure such an output of product, and such obedience to the rigorous and unremitting rule of silence. This force was the constantly impend- ing punishment, and its frequent application. It was frankly conceded by the administration that the system could not be main- tained without prompt, severe and effective punishment. Pages upon pages were written in the early years of Auburn to justify the use of the ** stripes," as flogging was called. The practice of the United States Navy was cited as proof that flogging was recognized and conceded to be necessary. The subordinate officers of the ^ prison, who had authority to inflict corporal punishment, were^/ justified by Powers, the warden, who said that they stood legally / in the same relation to the convicts as the master stood to the apprentice, or as the schoolmaster to his scholar.*^ Decisions of , judges from the bench upheld the actions of keepers who flogged. _J Judge Walworth of Cayuga County, in which Auburn is located, said in 1826 in charging a jury : ** Confinement, with labor merely, has no terror for the guilty. . . . It is through bodily suffering alone that the proper effect upon the prisoner is produced, and thence the necessity of a rigid enforcement of the prison >/ v discipline upon every convict by the actual infliction of bodily suffering, if he will not otherwise submit to the rules. ' ' '^ Edward Livingston, analyzing this opinion in his Introductory Report to the Code of Reform and Prison Discipline, stated his ab- horrence of the illegal and arbitrary use of the lash by subordinates, and pointed out that so wide and illogical was the power of the keepers, that they flogged because a convict spoke to his neighbor, and flogged the convict if he denied having spoken to his neighbor.^ The board of inspectors of the prison held that inferior officers should be invested with power to punish. ' ' The danger of abuse, ' ' they maintained, ''is an evil much less than the relaxation of*/ discipline produced by want of authority." It is worth noting that an earlier legal obligation of the inspectors to be present at such punishments was claimed to be so frequently inconvenient, and to cause them such painful feelings,^ that they asked to be absolved from this duty, which was granted. «>B. p. D. S., 1827. « B. and T., p. 159. ^ Gershom Powers. Report, p. 23. «»P. 519. ** Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 43. »/, 1 ^4 History of American Prisons In short, the door was thrown wide open to the practically indis- criminate use of corporal punishment, upon the judgment of the inferior officer. Punishments were inflicted with a rawhide whip, applied to the back in such a manner as (according to the rules) not to expose the head, face or eyes, or in any way put the convict's health or limbs in danger. This being a ''high and delicate trust," the keepers were admonished to exercise the prerogative with humanity and discretion! In aggravated cases, a cat, made of six strands of small twine, was applied to the back of the convict. Whipping the convict for violation of rules seemed to Powers to produce less personal suffering to the convict than any other punishment that could be devised.'^^ It was prompt; it was dreaded by the convict ; it was soon over. The convict could then return to work, and little time was lost in the shop. The certainty of immediate punishment for an offense committed was held to be an important point in its favor. Powers even claimed that the Auburn system of corporal punish- ment produced an excellent frame of mind in the prisoners : ^ *'A single unarmed keeper who may be in the shop with 50 or 60 convicts armed with deadly weapons, the implements of their trade, will order one of the most desperate of them to come before him for some offense as a father would call upon a rebellious son, or a teacher his disorderly scholar, and punish him in the presence of the other convicts. The delinquent almost uniformly receives his punishment submissively, and returns quietly to his labor- No rising or mutiny is ever occasioned, but, on the contrary, in the few cases where a delinquent has resisted, and attempted violence upon his keeper, the other convicts have never failed to rush instantly to his • relief and protection. . . . Nearly six hundred men, possessed of the best possible means of defense and escape, restrained only by wooden gates, which are constantly opening, are kept in perfect security and control by a few unarmed keepers and two guards armed with muskets. '^ ''Obey orders!" was the rule of prison life imposed constantly upon the convicts. It was unsafe ever to transgress a rule in the shops.^^ The entire system depended upon instant obedience to authority. There was to be no argument as to the circumstances of any individual case. A convict's word was never taken even V against another convict, and much less against an officer.^ Yet the "watch" itself was not wholly trusted. Julius tells of the method of checking up the night-watch: "There is in the wall, which separates each of the divisions from the other, a little window, through which the watchmen, of whom one goes on beat and one rests, must pass every half hour a leather ball, which thus in two hours has made the rounds. Only by an understanding among all night watchmen can this plan fail.'' It was inevitable that with the development of this policy of severe and frequent corporal punishments, hostile criticism should soon develop against the new methods of the prison. Between 1825 and 1845, two controversial questions became the chief prob- lems of both Auburn and Mount Pleasant (Sing Sing) prisons, 85 Gershom Powers. Report, p. 23. 8« Powers. Letter to Hon. Edward Livingston, pp. 22, 23. 8^ Gershom Powers, p. 13. 88 Same, p. 25. History of American Prisons 95 namely, prison punishments and prison labor. The first of these problems, in the early years of Auburn, we are now considering. Perhaps we shall understand much better the course of prison discipline at Auburn Prison if we seek to understand Captain LvndSr who was twice warden at Auburn, twice warden at Mount Pleasant Prison (Sing Sing), and seemingly almost continually under public criticism for his severe methods of disciplining con- ^ victSj,.- Captain Lynds' ideal was a prison that functioned with fiigii industrial efficiency. Captain Lynds did not believe in the \/ permanent reformability of adult convicts.^^ Silence was in his opinion indispensable to such a prison, not for reformation, but to prevent plots, riots and escapes. Any violation of rules must be punished at once. Deferred corporal punishment lost much of its force. Couched in present-day language, his first order to his keepers would have been: ''Never let the convict start anything! Get him first!" When Lynds was for the second time warden at Auburn, a disturbance in a certain tier of cells was reported to him. He ordered that some fifteen to twenty-five convicts be taken out, and that all of them be flogged. Among them he held that the right man would be found! Lynds became the leading authority of his time in prison man- agement, and he was commonly reputed to be the founder of the Auburn system. He was its most consistent and rigorous exponent. He resigned several times from a prison wardenship because of irreconcilable differences between himself and his suneriors. In general, he dominated the inspectors. Their penal philosophy, expressed in annual reports, was mainly his own. His principles and theories undoubtedly also affected legislative committees, directed to investigate prison conditions. As early as 1824, within a year of the definite establishment of the Auburn system, Captain Lynds' administration was already under fire. Punishments had been made very severe * ' because every other system had failed.'"*^ Although a school was maintained on Sunday for the younger convicts, it was given up shortly, be- cause XiyJida -emphasized the increased danger to society of the / educsLtedjionvict ! In 1824, a special commission, appointed by the Legislature with Samuel M. Hopkins as chairma^n, was directed to investigate the Auburn methods. Unquestionably the commission 's report reflected Lynds' dogmatic and tenacious principles, in re- porting that the State could not and ought not to undertake at the public's expense the moral reformation of convicts.^^ So excellent was the Auburn system in their eyes that they even advocated its adoption in the disorganized prison in New York city. These commissioners were shortly directed by the Legislature to build a projected new prison at Mount Pleasant, to supersede the one at Greenwich. That they should engage Captain Lynds for that task was natural. He was the ablest man in sight. »• Beaumont and de Tocqueville. '^New York Assembly Journal, 1823, p. 29. *i New York Assembly Journal, 1825, p. 108. 96 History of American Prisons But Auburn continued to be under fire under Captain Gershom Powers — whose words relative to the value and excellence of capital punishment we have recently quoted. Startling stories, circulated in the village of Auburn by discharged officers and others, of brutal beatings at the prison by insane male convicts, and of the death of a female convict induced by blows, made a second investigation unavoidable. Asrain were sent as an investi- gating committee, Messrs. Hopkins, Allen and Tibbits, now the builders of Mount Pleasant Prison. Their bias, sincere in all probability, was unmistakable. The testimonv of no convict was admissible. Should such evidence be admitted, any keeper could at any time be put on trial at the pleasure of a convict, with no loss /to the convict, but with ruinous expense to the defendant.^^ Keepers could thus, be always in partial subservience to convicts, through fear of what they might testify. The commission's report supported emphatically the Auburn system of punishments. Rewards to prisoners were inadmissible, because the convict was condemned to punishment. Personal punishments alone could govern desperate convicts ; without prompt / correction, at the discretion of the assistant keepers, the whole structure of the system would fall.^* The report of the committee would to-day be dubbed a whitewash. Most obvious cases of flogging of feebleminded and insane convicts were justified, con- doned or explained away. That a dangerous convict, after repeated flogging, finally settled down to do women's work was held to be a general justification of the system. The sum total was that, according to the commissioners, in a little more than four years under Captain Lynds, six cases of punishment deserved special attention, of which two were abuse, while under his successor, a Mr. Goodell, a mild-mannered and good-natured man, there were twenty-one conspicuous cases of punishment, of which twelve were abuses. The sudden and brief appearance of this Mr. Goodell as warden of Auburn Prison following Captain Lynds is more than usually interesting. This warden started out with deliberate humaneness of treatment. The commissioners, reporting upon his term of office, contemptuously attacked his theories as *' grounded upon the good qualities of convicted felons, ' ' ** which led him to seek, by kindness and confidence, to inspire the convicts with a spirit of willing and generous obedience. The results were said to be a serious relaxation of discipline, and an insolence and decrease of work on the part of the prisoners. No less than six vicious attacks on keepers occurred in Goodell 's administration, and which in a year was terminated by his own fatal illness. What might have ultimately been accomplished by Goodell can be only a matter of conjecture. The incident is of especial importance, in the history of prison administration, as being the earliest recorded effort to soften the rigors of the Auburn system at the institution itself. *2 New York Senate Journal, 1827. No. 50, Appendix A, p. 2. *3 New York Senate Journal, 1827. No. 5ft»-Appendix A, p. 8. **Op. Cit., p. 30. ^-^ VS( History of American Prisons 97 Even at this time, there was sounded by Edward Livingston, the eminent framer of the Code of Reform and Penal Discipline for the State of Louisiana, a most cogent and prophetic warning against the perpetuation of the system of severity of punishments — a warning which, however, was not heeded : ^^ "A superficial view of this subject has led to the belief that the great secret of penal legislation is, to annex a penalty of sufficient severity to every offense; and, accordingly, all the variety of pains that the body of man could suffer, infamy and death, have figured as sanctions in the codes of all nations; but although these have been in a train of experiment for thousands of years, under every variety that Government, manners and religion can give, they have never produced the expected effect. The reason is to be found in the insurgent spirit with which man was endowed by his beneficent creator to answer the best ends of his nature. The same feeling that, elevated, refined and applied to the noblest purpose animates the patriot to resist civil tyranny, and the martyr to defy the flames ; when it is perverted, and made the incentive to vice and crime, goads on the convict to arraign the justice of his sentence, to rebel against those who execute it, and to counteract its effects with an obstinacy in exact propor- tion to the severity of the punishment. . . . Few instances can be found in which any series of constrained acts have produced the habit of continuing them after the force was removed.'* Yet it is easy to misjudge and to overestimate the severity of the disciplinary features of Auburn Prison. The rules were indeed rigid and the punishments speedy and harsh; that the keepers were equipped with legal power sufficient to guarantee their legal and political "safety*' in inflicting punishments is evidenced in the following section from a law passed in 1819, wherein it is provided that if a prisoner in a State prison refuse to comply with the rules of the institution, **It is hereby declared to be the duty of the respective keepers under the direction of the inspectors to inflict corporal punishment on such prisoners by whipping not to exceed 39 lashes at any time, or to confine them in solitary cells on bread and water, or to put them in irons or stocks. . . .'' In 1828 the revised statutes gave further range of action to the officers of the prison, by providing that, in case of violence on the part of convicts, or attempts to escape, ** officers of the prison shall use all suitable means to defend themselves, ^ enforce the observance of discipline, to secure the persons of the offenders and to prevent any such attempt at escape." As Klein observes, in ** Prison Methods in New York State,'' this is an even more generous blanket license for the imposition of punishment than that contained in the law of 1796, for it was exceedingly simple for officials to consider any movement on the part of the prisoner as violence, attempted violence or attempted escape. Miss Harriet Martineau, in her * ' Retrospect of Western Travel, ' ' published in New York in 1838, says of the punishments then observed in the women 's quarters in Auburn Prison : **The arrangements for the women were extremely bad. The gabble of tongues in the one room (in which the women prisoners were confined) was enough to paralyze any matron. There was an engine in sight which made «0p. Cit., p. 16. ~ 4 98 History of American Prisons me doubt the evidence of my own eyes; stocks, of a terrible construction; a chair, with a fastening for the head and all the limbs. Any lunatic asylum ought to be ashamed of such an instrument. The governor (i. e., warden) liked it no better than we. He pleaded that it was only means of keeping his refractory prisoners quiet with only one room to put them in. . . . The first principle in the management of the guilty seems to me to be to treat them as men and women. . . . Their humanity is the principal thing about them; their guilt is a temporary state. The insane are first men, and secondarily diseased men. ^'The women, all in the attic story of the south wing, were in Power's time under the supervision of the steward keeper of the kitchen. They were employed mainly in picking wool, in knitting, and in spooling, although to very little advantage, as no means of coercion could very well be adopted, according to Warden Powers, nor any restraint be put upon their conversa- tion with each other, because they were left alone, except once a day, when the steward keeper went with three of his kitchen convicts, taking the rations of the women, and the other supplies, and ordered out the work that they had done. They were visited by the physician when sick, and some- times by the chaplain.*' Nevertheless there is abundant testimony, even from prison chaplains, that the well-behaved prisoners suffered little punish- ment." Never had the Reverend Jared Curtis ** heard a convict complain that more was exacted of him than was reasonable, or that his rations were not good, and in suflacient quantity. ... A large portion of the convicts are better fed and clothed, and are in all respects more comfortable than when they enjoyed their liberty and were preying upon the community.'' Even the most tender-hearted and humane philanthropists could not refrain from feeling at times that the lash was necessary. It was an age in which the use of the rod was far more customary than to-day. ''Spare the rod and spoil the child" is an adage enjoying the strength of long-time sanction. Even some twenty years after the establishment of the Auburn system, Dorothea Dix herself, in 1845, sanctioned reluctantly the use of the "cat" as a last resort: "Those who at present urge the abandonment of all modes of maintaining discipline except the language of persuasion must be either reckless of con- sequences, or ignorant of human nature as manifested by a considerable portion of ignorant, long- abased convicts. Those who discover (t. e., show) few traits above the lowest of the brute creation can no more, at first, be influenced to obey rules and general order by mild influence and words, than the tiger or hyena can be brought to tameness by an expressive word or gentle regard. ... I am certain I could never subdue my instinctive horror and disgust of punishment by the lash. ... I could never order, witness or permit its application, but I am forced, with unspeakable reluctance, to concede that I believe it may sometimes be the only mode, under the Auburn system, by which an insurrectionary spirit can be conquered. It should not be inflicted during the first moments of excitement . . . (and) not until reasonable and mild measures have been persevered in, and proved to be unavailing. . . ." y We have found, then, as pillars of the Auburn system, the factors vof silence, separation, hard labor and severe corporal punishments. What, on the other hand, did the new system offer of reformative value ? Much, according to its sponsors, in addition to the above-men- tioned features, all of which were held to be reformative in themselves. «New York Senate Journal, 1827. No. 50, Appendix A, p. 8. History of American Prisons 99 Sunday, at Auburn Prison, was a day without work by the convicts. After the usual breakfast in the messhall, they were inarched back to their cells, where, except for the period of church service, they were allowed for the rest of the day to be on their beds, until the bell rang in the evening for undressing.'^^ Recall the not very remote New England Sunday, vivid memory of my own boyhood for instance, when any active pleasure on Sunday was regarded as quite contrary to the purposes of the Lord's Day! y No games were played by ' ' properly ' ' brought up youngsters, thirty ^ years or more ago in New England, and to hear band music or to go skating on Sunday was quite outside the correct observance of the day. Therefore, it is readily understood that, a hundred years ago, in the Auburn prison, there would be nothing approaching active movement in the prison population on Sunday. Imagine the long Sunday, passed iii cells of less than 200 cubic feet of space, without reading matter, save the one Book always present, which, however good, would at times pall. No visitor, no friend, no chance to have intercourse with even a fellow-inmate, no hope of any change on the morrow, or next week, or next month, except for those soon to go out of the prison. No exercise, no chance to bathe in the sun, or breathe the fine country air. No slightest chance to gratify the instincts of sociability, of play, of ambition, of anything ! Sunday / differed from any other day only in being a day of no work, and a day when for those who elected to do so, church might be attended, within the prison, of course. Such convicts, choosing church, remained in their seats in the messhall at the close of breakfast, and were taken by two keepers / into the chapel, where they were taught by some twenty young men from the local theological seminary in the village, who volun- teered their services.^ The resident chaplain had general supervision over the Sunday school. Any conversation whatsoever between the young citizen- teachers and the convicts on any subject other than the lessons was rigorously forbidden. The Sunday school privilege was eagerly embraced by about a fourth of the prison population. It was absolutely the only alleviation of the entire week! One prisoner pleaded for any form of punishment other than that of being deprived of his Sunday school.'^'^ To De Metz and Blouet, the prisoners stated at Auburn that Sunday was the hardest of the week to endure, because of passing the day in a narrow cell.^ In addition to Bible study, and religious instruction, convicts were taught reading, writing and arithmetic. As early as 1822, it was seen that the Auburn prison population was highly illiterate. More than three-fourths of the population could barely read and write, and not one in ten possessed any high degree of intelligence.^^ *' Powers. Report, p. 34. *« Powers, p. 34. "De Metz and Blouet, p. 13. "B. P. D. S.. 1827. p. 93. Bi Report of Inspectors, 1822. 100 History of American Prisons M The chaplain was regarded as the only officer of the prison whose *^ work was clearly reformative. The "agent and keeper" (the two titles of the executive officer of the prison) was the business man- ager of the institution. Reformation was not his duty. Frequently he doubted if it could be achieved. The principal keeper was the general disciplinarian and was also the captain of the prison staff of keepers and guards. These officials were not concerned with the saving of the prisoners' souls, but with the security of their bodies, and the protection of the citizens from their depredations. They had the routine tasks of keeping order, preventing escapes, main- taining industry and punishing for violations of rules. The physi- cian 's task did not extend beyond the intermittent and relatively cursory care of the sick. Ajid_joJhe--Xihaplain^3^toler^ rather than activEly- favored by jthe_administration — must be the pris- oners ' guide back to rectitude and honesty. f Hence the insistence by Warden Powers, who for his time was clearly an enlightened warden, that there should be a resident chaplain, giving his whole time to his work. This was, of course, a considerable innovation. This service of the chaplain. Reverend Jared Curtis, was at first partially contributed by the Boston Prison Discipline Society, which from 1825 on furnished and paid his salary. It was not surprising that a philanthropic society of another State should maintain a chaplain at Auburn. That prison, for a time, was the only typical prison exemplifying the new system. The Boston Society started out by being not local or even State- wide in its interests, but national, and it early made through its representative, Louis Dwight, frequent and valuable visits to many American institutions, the results of which appeared year after year in the annual reports of the Prison Discipline Society, and furnish to us to-day the most cogent and most accessible source of our information of this period. Warden Powers felt, in 1828, that the State itself ought to appoint such an officer as the chaplain. The duties of the chaplain should be to have the special supervision of the religious instruction of the convicts, visiting and conversing with them in their cells, imploring a blessing at their tables before they sat down to eat, and praying with them after they went to their cells at night, and before they lay down to sleep. ^^ Everything that the chaplain did, however, must conform to the rules of the prison. To-day the progressive and socially-minded chaplain is, in a modern State prison or reformatory, one of the most influential and most necessary officers. There are a thousand and one intimate needs of the prisoners. The Sunday service is but a small, though important, part of the chaplain's weekly work. He it is who in particular furnishes the link between the inmate and his family outside. He advises with the prisoners, often teaches, often prays with them, not infrequently becomes the intimate sharer of the inmate's secrets. The chaplain is at the bedside of the sick, and is the solace, so far as there can be solace, of the man about to pay the ^2 Gershom Powers, p. 54. History of Ameripan PttisaNs , ,, 101 extreme penalty, and he walks with him to the chair or to the gallows. The chaplain's work is never done — and his strength among the inmate population depends almost entirely upon his own personality and his own conception of his high duty and privilege. In an outline by the warden of Mount Pleasant Prison, Robert Wiltse, in 1834, the following duties and obligations of the chaplain were outlined, which applied in all probability to Auburn Prison also, and represented the attitude of the time toward the activity of the chaplain within the prison : ^ The chaplain was to conform strictly to all the rules of the \ / prison. He was to furnish the convicts with no intelligence save I ' what his profession required him to give. He was to give no hope \ or promise of pardon, or of attempting to procure a pardon. ^ He was to have free access to the convicts save when they were in the shops at labor. He was to make the convict feel the necessity . of amendment, and of strict obedience. Ho^wa^to^ convince, if J posgibIfi^4he convict of the justice of his sentence, "^furmng'back to the period of the wardenship of Gershom Powers, we find how absolutely divorced from the task of individual counsel and co-operation with the inmate was the position of warden at that time. Powers, by his own statement, regarded his duties toward the inmate of such distant nature that not until the dis- charge of the convict from the prison did he invite him into his office and there, /or ilae first time, ''enter into a free and friendly conversation with him," endeavoring ''by desultory course of inquiry" to arrive at a knowledge of his former history; how he was "bred up;" what means of literary, moral and religious instruction he had enjoyed, etc. The prisoner was also asked in detail as to the effects of his confinement ; in what respect he had endured the most suffering, how he had been treated, and in what business he was now to engage. After the convict had stated that of all the impulses and of the temptations of prison, the craving to talk with his fellow-man was the greatest, and that he often did y not know the names of his fellow convicts who had worked for ^ months at his side, the convict was given the customary three dollars allowed by law, and he was dismissed — of course, with admonition and advice ! ^ Powers believed that it was wise to postpone this interview until the last moment of the convict's prison term, because ** during the period of their confinement, the convicts have so many motives for concealment, that the same reliance could not be placed on the statements they might make. ' ' " Wardens of the present day, reading of this early method of Gershom Powers, and thinking on their own present methods of dealing with their individual inmates, will, many of them, ponder at the wide difference between the present and the past. For it is by far the most common custom of wardens to hold frequent inter- views with the inmates, and in particular to grant to inmates the privilege of an interview upon a request placed in the designated '^ Powers. Report, p. 50. " Powers, p. 49. 102 iliSTOiiY.OF American Prisons box in the prison yard or building, and accessible to all prisoners. Indeed, I have seen in prison after prison during the last ten years, a really striking knowledge and intimate interest on the part of wardens as to their inmates' desires and affairs. The many big-hearted wardens who in recent years have often made bold experiments with the honor system have recognized that one of their chief functions in their prisons has been to know their inmates not simply officially but personally, and with sympathy and interest in their affairs. They have recognized the high value of such a relationship in inducing reformation and a sense of responsibility. Have we not, even already in this study, seen emerge from the gray background of these prisons that pass before our eyes the figures of outstanding personalities? Have we not been, perhaps unconsciously, seeking to understand the prison by interpreting the man who was the warden, or who built the institution, or whose penal philosophy led to some result which we have noted. Have w^e not already seen pass before us the spirit of William Penn, of William Bradford, of Caleb Lownes, of Thomas Eddy? And, in the times of great demoralization, and of failure, have we not marked the absence of any outstanding personality? Where were the men to combat the debacle in the Massachusetts State Prison, or at Newgate in Connecticut? But with the rise of the new system at Auburn, we find looming up successively, as contributors to an organization that was for its time the most successful in the country, the figures of Captain Brittin, of Elam Lynds, and of Gershom Powers. We shall see the dominance of Lynds at Mount Pleasant Prison mark that institution with specific characteristics. Throughout this study we shall in realitv be noting the close correlation of the dominant personality with the note-worthy product, in some form, within the \prison. Indeed, I have recently written, apropos of the spirit manifested in a modern prison: **No warden in any prison can conceal the 'spirit of the prison' from the trained observer. A warden can attempt to camouflage his institution by expatiating upon the high polish of the floors, the excellent cleanliness of the nooks and crannies, the fine light bread, the precision of administration — and those are necessary parts of a prison regime, but not the soul of it. The warden can seek by hale and hearty joviality, or by an assumption of learning, or confidential communications, or apparent solicitude for his 'boys' or for 'penology' and the like, to conceal other conditions of dubious nature. "But he cannot camouflage the way the inmates react to him, look at him, get ready for him as he approaches — and these things are tell-tale barometers of an institution. This Eaiford project (i. e., the State Prison Farm of Florida, which the writer had just visited, and which had inspired the article) could hardly last over night, with the present very few paid employes if something beside the law did not hold it together. Even the powerhouse, the electric plant, the mechanical heart of the institution is run wholly by inmates. At any instant, of an evening, the lights could all be cut off, the power shut down. The few cars or teams could be commandeered without too much difficulty. So something must hold Eaiford together, for throughout the institution, during the day, there are no guns. The gangs working under inmate overseers are not dominated by shotguns or rifles. History of American PilisONs 103 "The something that makes Eaiford go is probably a combination of good \ spirit, the sense of a square deal, a traditional submission to authority, and [ a fear of the extremely heavy penalties for attempted escape. . . . The | spirit of an institution is the finest asset — or the greatest liability — that S can be presented to the State by the institution. Industry, product, build- / ings, discipline, are, of course, essentials. But the intangible thing, the I spirit of the place, the thing that underlies the daily life of the place, L underlies honor systems, attempts at self-government and the like — that is \ the conditioning factor in reclamation and rehabilitation, the cement that I holds the hghly dynamic mass from flying off centrifugally, when guns and / guards are lacking, and the portals yawn with temptations to escape." So, in this earlier era, we begin to think of prisons as Captain Lynds* prison (Sing Sing), or Gershom Powers' prison (Auburn), y or a little later Samuel Wood's prison (Eastern Penitentiary ol"^ Pennsylvania), and Amos Pilsbury's prison (the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield). Hopkins wrote : ^^ ''Many at Auburn prison are often moved to tears under the preaching of an eloquent and able minister there. ... I have also heard them sob- bing in great numbers, at a few words spoken to them in public by Mr. Powers, in which he alluded to the situation and feelings of their friends. . . . We must avoid extremes in judging of them. They are not the innocent victims of unjust laws; but neither are they all demons. They are men, though greatly fallen." For, despite the apparently paradoxical attitude of mind toward the establishment of friendly relations with the prisoners during the terms of the incarceration, Powers appeared to be sincerely interested in at least establishing the fact that Auburn Prison was a reformative institution. He tried hard to learn, by letters sent out to postmasters, district attorneys and others, something about the subsequent career of convicts discharged from his prison. In his edition of 1828, he stated that of 160 prisoners released, 112 were described by correspondence as being subsequent to their prison careers decidedly steady and industrious, and of relatively good character; 12 as somewhat reformed; 2 as not much improved; 4 of whom nothing was known ; 2 as deranged, and 20 as decidedly bad.^ At this time, 29 prisoners at Auburn had been previously confined therein. Powers deduced therefrom that his statistics ** warranted the increased exertions of the legislators and of all who feel an interest in the moral improvement and reformation of this degraded and unhappy class of our fellow beings. ' ' " This is an early effort to prove results statistically, and cannot be accepted as conclusive. There is no indication that the entire prison population that had been discharged had been studied. Furthermore, it has been found, even in these modern days, that the information gathered through correspondence is frequently inaccurate or too general to be wholly trustworthy. In the early days of Auburn Prison, when postal service was primitive and dilatory, it could hardly be expected that such information would be full or to the point. Moreover, the statistics as gathered show "^De Mptz and Blouet, p. 346. " B. P. D. S., 1828. " Powers, p. 71. 104 ffisTok-^'OF 'American Prisons that some sixty-five to seventy per cent, of the released inmates, as included in the total number studied, were ** behaving them- selves." But these former inmates had been but a short time out of prison. The test of reformation is not by any means the first six months, or the first year out of prison, but a period of at least several years. The chief fallacy still existing in the majority of the reports of institutions maintaining parole lies in the assumption that any released inmate who passes successfully through the period of parole — six months or a year, or even more — is '* reformed. " Few correctional institutions, even to-day, in the United States have statistics showing the subsequent record of released inmates extending beyond the conclusion of the period of parole. We turn now, briefly, to the industrial phases of the earliest history of Auburn Prison. It was in the years from 1828 on, that Warden Powers and his successors could record the financial success yof the prison as an industrial plant. The Boston Prison Discipline Society held in its first annual report that prisoners should prac- tically defray the expenses of maintenance of the prison. By 1828, the earnings of Auburn for the fiscal year had come to within $1,000 of the total disbursements, which were $35,504. Warden Powers maintained that **the most sanguine economist never dreamed of making public prisoners pay for their support, and also for prisons to confine them." But he added in the same year that he believed no further appropriation would ever be necessary for the support of the convicts in the prison, unless in case of some unforeseen calamity.^ The distribution of labor and the earnings at Auburn Prison in the year ending October 31, 1827, were as follows : No. of Convicts Average Daily Earnings per man Total Earnings for month Cooper Shop Tool Shop Shoemaker's Shop Tailor's Shop Weaver's Shop . . . Blacksmith's Shop Turner's Shop. . . . 106 25 69 57 104 34 16 $0.27 .37 $770 246 551 123 In addition, there were working on October 31, 1828, 90 others, besides 14 females, at building, and as cooks, washers, woodsawers, scrubbers, waiters, etc. J At the time of Power's wardenship, the complicated problems of the competition of prison labor with free labor had already arisen, as well as the equally perplexing problem of contract labor — the letting of the labor of the prisoners to private firms or individuals. The prison, through its products, was influencing the ''open market," and was arousing the ire of the ''free mechanics," as the laboring man and the artisan of the day were called. Within a few •« B. p. D. S., 1828, p. 164. Gershom Powers. Report, p. 48, History of American Prisons 105 years after the establishment of Auburn Prison upon a basis that from the standpoint of the administration was industrially "sound," Auburn Prison was to become the storm center of a violent agitation against prison-made products and the contracting of the labor of prisoners. Discussion of this very important development must be deferred to Chapter twelve. We can, however, make a rapid survey of the prison labor laws of the State of New York up to the period we now leave, for discussion of other prisons and States. The law of 1796, applying then, of course, to the newly planned State prison that was built in Greenwich, provided that **it shall and may be lawful for the inspectors of each of the said prisons either by themselves or by an agent or agents to be by them from time to . time appointed, to purchase such . . . tools, implements, raw or other ^y^ materials on which to employ the convicts . . . and shall cause to be kept regular accounts of all the articles so to be purchased and of the avails arising from the sales of any articles manufactured by the convicts in such prisons . . . and to carry the residue to the credit of the State. We have seen in Chapter 6 the early undertakings of the prison at Greenwich. The first labor opposition appeared about 1801, and came from boot and shoemakers, resulting in an amendment to the law, and requiring that boots and shoes made by convicts should be branded with the words ' ' State Prison. ' ' Some three years later, a further law prohibited the employment of more than one-eighth of the convicts in the State Prison in the making of boots and shoes, excluding from this number those who had learned their trade before commitment. In 1819, the prison authorities were empowered by law to employ convicts "upon any of the public avenues, roads, streets or other works in the city of New York, and also on other public works in the counties of Eichmond and Kings (now Staten Island and Brooklyn). A further law authorized, in 1820, ' ' the purchase of marble quarries to be operated by convict labor from the New York Prison." In 1817 a law had been passed permitting the employ- ment of prisoners on canals to be constructed under the canal commissioners of the State. In 1817, there had been a radical effort made, through law, to do away with the manufacturing by the State of prison-made products on its own account. In that year, a law prohibited "the purchase of any materials to be wrought or worked up for sale by the convicts confined in the State Prison on account of the State after October 31, 1817." The law furthermore directed that convicts were to be ** solely employed in manufacturing and making up such material as may. be brought to the State Prison by or for individuals or convicts to whom such materials may belong, to be manufactured at fixed prices for labor bestowed upon them, to be paid by the owners of the goods to the agent of the said prison for the use of the State." This is an early form of the system known as *' piece-price, ' * whereby the State acts as the manufacturer of the goods, but does 106 History of Amekicai^ Prisons not undertake to market them, or to procure the raw materials in the first place. This plan did not work successfully, and in the /following year, 1818, the prison was by law permitted to continue J the earlier system of manufacturing on its own account and selling its products in the open market, a system known later as the ' * State- account" system. In 1821, contract labor was authorized by law, whereby the labor of prisoners might be leased to outside firms or ''contractors" at a daily rate per capita, specified in the contract. Such work in she majority of cases in our American prisons has been done within 'the prison walls, and where the actual physical presence of prisoners has been contracted for, as in the turpentine groves of Florida or on railroad construction, the method of contracting has been known as the ' ' lease system. ' ' The commission that was appointed in 1824 to examine into the subjects of prison and prison management reported that **the largest source of income is from the labor of convicts done for account of individuals, and on raw materials and articles brought into, and worked up in the prison workshops and charged to the employers or contractors by the piece." Prison labor, presumably with emphasis on the piece-price system, had thus far been profitable at Auburn Prison. But under the statutes of 1828, the year of Gershom Power's revised account of Auburn Prison, contract labor was introduced as a permanent policy of the State prisons of New York. The law of 1828 provided that ** whenever the inspectors of either prison shall so direct, it shall be the duty of the agent of such prison to make contracts from time to time for the labor of convicts confined therein, or of any of the said convicts with such persons and upon such terms as may be deemed by the said agent most beneficial to the State ... it shall be the duty of the agents to use their best efforts to defray all the expenses of the said prisons by the labor of their prisoners.*' We turn now, at this period of the more stable utilization of contract labor in the prisons of New York, to a study of the early years of the most noted prison upon the American continent, the State prison erected from 1825 on in the village of Sing Sing on the banks of the Hudson. CHAPTER X THE EARLY YEARS OF MOUNT PLEASANT PRISON (SING SING) On an April evening in 1920, the writer of this study, accom- panied by a song-leader who had done service in the army during the war, and an accompanist who had played and sung, up and down the trenches in France, went up to Sing Sing Prison from New York to aid in conducting the first * * community sing ' ' in that century-old institution. The song-leader, after his remarkable experience of that evening, was dubbed the **man who put the 'sing' in Sing Sing." To the writer, sitting in the extreme rear of the great room that serves as auditorium and chapel, watching in the semi-darkness (as the slides were thrown on the screen with the words of the popular songs), and seeing over a thousand men sitting there, singing lustily, resonantly, with fine volume and with surprising accuracy of tone and appreciation, the mental pictures of the origin in 1825 of this Bastile on the Hudson recurred with almost poignant vivid- ness. Here in A. D. 1920, were convicts, assembled together without guards, singing the same songs that the men of the army had sung in France, in going into battle, and in the training camps of this country. Here was an essentially normal process — singing in common — and here were a thousand men on honor, conducting themselves without the presence of prison officials, enjoying the unusual treat of singing human songs in a human, co-operative way! Murderers, burglars, robbers, embezzlers — all sorts and kinds of criminals — sang of home, and of mother, and of the simple virtues, sang of love, and hope, and joy, of country and of God! The meeting was being conducted by the Mutual Welfare League, a self-governing organization of the prisoners that was founded in 1914 by Thomas Mott Osborne, when he became warden of Sing Sing Prison. The man who introduced the song leader and the accompanist that evening was a convicted murderer. The inmate guards were of all degrees of crime. During the day and the evening, the officials of the Mutual Welfare League controlled, within such limits as the warden designated, the social side of the inmates' prison life. Yes, through the span of a century, fundamental changes have come over the prisons of the country! Sing Sing, as we said at the beginning of this study, is shortly to become the most note- worthy example in the world of the receiving and distributing prison. But when, in 1824, the Legislative commission, consisting^ of Stephen Allen, Samuel M. Hopkins and George Tibbits, were appointed to visit both Auburn and Greenwich Prisons, their sole purpose was to report on their relative merits, and to plan for some institution that would solve the notorious problems of the old prison in Greenwich. [107] 108 History of American Prisons This commission, reporting in 1825, adhered with conviction to the merits of the new system at Auburn. They had been pro- foundly impressed with the talents, integrity and system of discipline inaugurated there by Elam Lynds, the Auburn warden.^ Undoubtedly, the commingling and the idleness at the Greenwich prison accentuated by contrast the impressiveness of Warden Lynds' new methods. The commission gave also special study to the economic responsibilities of a prison. Prisoners should not only not be idle, but they should meet so far as possible the cost of maintaining the prison. According to the commissioners,^ the kind of work fitted for a State prison should embody the following properties : It should be of a kind for which there is a great demand. The material should be cheap. The trade should be one that is easily learned. It should be a business that cannot be so conducted by machinery as to reduce the wages too greatly. The trade should be one at which hard labor can be enforced, and also be made profitable. The commissioners advised the abandonment of the State prison at Greenwich, because it was of unfit construction, and incapable of maintaining profitable industries. Casting their business gaze toward other States, they saw both the State prisons of New Hamp- shire and Massachusetts carrying on a profitable industry in stone- cutting. Where could a quarry or quarries be secured near New York? Either at Marble Hill, near New York (just beyond the extreme north end of the island of Manhattan) or in the village of Sing Sing. Why should stone cutting be the determining industrial factor in the establishment and location of the new prison ? Because : ® The raw material would require only the labor of convicts in its preparation. The demand for the article as a building material was bound to increase. A prison located on the Hudson Eiver, near New York, would make the expense of transportation by water to the place of demand slight. There would also be demand for the stone from outside the State. The quarries under consideration by the commission would not come in competition with others, since they were the nearest ones to New York city. Such quarries would furnish hard and constant labor to the convicts — thus meeting the requirements of their sentences. In this business, the manual labor would not be likely to be displaced later by machinery. Furthermore, the prisoners could build their own prison from the materials at hand; the stone prison thus constructed would be both fireproof and impregnable. Repairs on a stone prison would be much less costly. These arguments impressed the Legislature, as did also the esti- mate of a probable cost of only $62,671 for building a prison of 800 individual cells — this sum to include maintenance of 100 working convicts the first year of construction, and of 200 such convicts in the next two years. The old prison in New York might be sold 1 Report of Select Comm. of New York Senate, 1831, p. 2. 2 Assembly Journal, 1825, P- 112. 3 Op. Cit. (Assembly Journal), p. 132. History of American Prisons 109 for $50,000, and if the $40,000 of repairs necessary to the old prison were added thereto, the State would gain financially by the erection of a new prison elsewhere. The commissioners carried the day, and were also appointed a commission to locate and build the prison that was to become the best known — at times the most notorious — in the world. An option was secured at Mount Pleasant, in the town of Sing Sing, of a tract of 130 acres, called the Silver Mine Farm, and belonging to John Fleetwood Marsh. On this land, rising steeply from the Hudson to a height of some 170 feet, and 33 miles from New York, a silver mine had been extensively worked before and up to the War of the Revolution.* It was reported that silver ore in consider- able quantities had been taken out. More recently, several tons of copper ore had been extracted. The State appropriated $70,000 in March, 1825, with which to build the new prison. Mr. Marsh's farm and a small adjacent parcel were bought for $20,100. Captain Lynds was engaged to build the new prison — on his guarantee that he could successfully meet the wholly new problem of constructing a great prison by the labor of desperate convicts, lodged not in a walled prison, but literally in the fields. The undertaking was daring, but Lynds was filled with confi- dence. He picked his hundred convicts from Auburn Prison, instead of from the near-by prison in New York, because the Auburn prisoners were more familiar not only with cutting and laying stone, but also with his swift and heavy hand. In the spring of 1825, the convicts were taken from Auburn Prison to the canal, seven miles away, whence they were brought in two canal boats to the Hudson River, and thence in freight steamers to Sing Sing, where they arrived on May 14th. Each man made the journey with shackles on one leg. On the same day they erected a temporary barracks,^ and soon afterwards a cookhouse, and a blacksmith's and carpenter's shop. They proceeded at once to the leveling of the broken and precipitous side hill for a prison site. From the outset this task proved slower and more arduous than had been anticipated. The convicts were guarded by officers with guns, and from the first a rigid discipline of obedience and silence was enforced. We must make no mistake about the methods pursued in main- taining this system of out-door employment of convicts at Mount Pleasant Prison. This was no forerunner of a system of outdoor convict labor on an honor basis. Riots and escapes were prevented only by absolute obedience to the commands of labor and silence. Guards had full authority to inflict ''stripes" without even report- ing such floggings to their superior officers. "Why are these nine hundred malefactors less strong than the thirty individuals who command them? Because the keepers communicate freely with each other, act in concert, and have all the power of association; whilst the convicts, separated from each other by silence, have, in spite of their * Senate Journal, 1829, p. 304. » Senate Document 92, 1834, p. 7. 110 History of American Prisons numerieal force, all the weakness of isolation. Suppose for an instant, the prisoners obtain the least facility of communication; the order is immediately ^the reverse; the union of their intellects, effected by their spoken word, has taught them their strength; and the first infraction of the law of silence destroys the whole discipline. ' ' • Clearly, then, the sanction for silence, as an integral part of the Auburn system, rested on the necessity of preventing disorder, riots and escapes, as well as on the importance of preserving the individ- ual prisoner from the contaminating influence of his associates. The warden of the period was probably far less worried about the possibilities of still further demoralizing his inmate population by mutual opportunities for conversation than he was about the chances of the development of plots through mutual communication. The same principle of perpetual silence, therefore, which appealed to the philanthropist for its preventive and reformative value, was pleasing to the prison official as a disciplinary and precautionary measure. By the coming of cold weather, 60 cells had been built of the 800 proposed. The prison was to be a single building, 476 feet long, 44 feet wide, and four tiers high. The plan of the cellblock was to be almost identical with that of Auburn. The cells were placed back to back. Their dimensions were depth 7 feet, width 3 feet 3 inches, height 6 feet 7 inches. These cells are used to-day, nearly a century after they were built, and are intolerably small, often very damp, and altogether unfit for human habitation. They will be abandoned with the completion of the new receiving and classification prison. Two reasons conditioned the location of the prison at the water's edge. First, the importance of having the workshops at tidewater, in order to facilitate the delivery of the stone with the minimum of cartage. Secondly, for reasons of health,^ by which was meant probably the importance of securing easy drainage facilities. This latter reason is the more surprising because in later days, one of the chief criticisms of Sing Sing Prison was its dampness and consequent unhealthiness. When William Crawford, the English visitor, went through the prison in 1832 he found the prison cells deficient in ventilation, they had a close and offensive smell, probably owing to the low situation in which the building stands, and which prevents as good a circulation of air as might be obtained on a higher spot. The floor is damp in wet weather. " * In 1845, for instance, only twenty years after the beginning of the construc- tion of the prison, Dorothea Dix wrote that the location of the prison rendered the cells damp, and even the fires in the stoves in the corridors failed to correct this condition. Within six months of commencing work on the prison, in 1825, the convicts were already being housed two in a cell. The cam- paign, nearly a century later, for the permanent abolition of Sing Sing, was based largely upon the pernicious ** doubling up" of prisoners in these viciously small cells, in a great, damp bastile-like •B. & T., p. 26. T New York Senate Journal, 1827, p. 62. 8 Crawford, p. 29. History of American Prisons 111 structure. Here, at the very outset of this prison's history, the same practice was begun, with the inevitable excuse of ''lack of room." Obviously, it broke down temporarily the Auburn system of separation and silence, the cardinal principles of the new method, just as in our own time the doubling up of prisoners, two in a cell, has broken down morality, health, and lessened the possibility of reformation. We find reference, at this time, to what and how much the convicts in 1825 ate, and how they were fed. A certain Ebenezer Wilson secured the contract for feeding the prisons, at 8i/4 cents a day per capita, on the following dietary — the meat being salt, not fresh: 1 lb. prime beef, or % lb. prime pork. 12 oz. rye flour. 6 oz. Indian meal. % gill molasses. And for every hundred rations: 3 bushels potatoes. 4 qts. rye for rye coffee. 2 qts. vinegar. 2 oz. pepper. During the first year, so alert Were the guards that there was but one escape, and this convict was retaken. There were three deaths, and **some sickness." A hospital was lacking. A year later, $63,503 of the original appropriation of $70,000 had been expended, but only 170 feet of the cellhouse had been erected. Work was delayed by the great amount of excavating and leveling. The maximum of 200 convicts, that had been planned for the second year could not be employed for lack of quarters. The simple expedient of housing convicts under such circum- stances in temporary shacks was evidently not deemed longer feasible, although it had been done the year before. Convicts trans- ferred from the State prison at Greenwich had proved poor workers, and also refractory. Lynds always maintained that the prisoner must go through a process that we would to-day call ** breaking, ' ' before he became a useful and docile convict. These men from the old State prison did not fall into the Lynds' system of discipline. On December 1st, there were 169 convicts at the prison, of whom 158 were quarrying, cutting stone or excavating. An incident of 1826 throws a side light on the curious sense of what was felt to be a privilege granted by the then commissioners. The Legislature raised the question why the iron grated doors in the Mount Pleasant Prison should be hung flush with the corridor, instead of nearly two feet back, at the inner end of the recess of the cell door as at Auburn. The commissioners solemnly assured the Legislature that they had done this partly in order that the prisoner, when pacing up and down within his cell, might extend his walk from 2i/2 to 3 steps! Another year, 1827, saw 428 cells completed, and 372 cells yet to be built. The commissioners were delighted with the site. * * A more 112 History of American Prisons healthy situation could not have been selected. "» The Reverend Gerrish Barrett was appointed chaplain, his salary of $200 being paid partly by the commissioners and partly by the Boston Prison Discipline Society. An interesting light upon the methods of this early prison chaplain is thrown by the report of the Prison Dis- cipline Society of 1829, showing the manner in which Gerrish Barrett taught a certain illiterate convict at Sing Sing. The statement was made in schedule form : February 22d, 1829. Began the first verse of Genesis and learned 4 letters. February 23d. Learned 5 letters more. February 24th. Could say all the letters in the first line. February 25th. Knew all the letters in the first verse. February 26th. Knew all the letters in 2 verses. February 27th. Spelled all the words of one syllable in the first verse. February 28th. Partially learned the words: " created '' and "heaven." March 1st. Besides learning "created" and "heaven" more perfectly, spelled the word * * beginning ' ' correctly. March 2d. Bead the first verse in the Bible for the first time. March 3d. Bead the first line of the second verse. March 4th. Bead all the second verse. March 5th. Bead correctly the third verse. March 6th. The fourth verse. March 8th. Five verses.* March 10th. Six verses. March 18th. Bead with ease to the sixteenth verse. March 19th. To the twentieth verse. March 22d. To the twenty-third verse. March 29th. Bead correctly the first chapter of Genesis. Tabulating his activity as chaplain, he stated that during a period of 18 weeks, 770 chapters containing 19,328 verses had been recited by the convicts. Forty-two entire books had been committed to memory; one man in 17 weeks committed 49 chapters, or 1605 verses, another 1,296 verses. There were 235 convicts at work on December 31st, 1827. In April, 1828, the Legislature authorized the removal of all the con- victs from the New York State Prison, and ordered that, since there were no quarters for female convicts at Mount Pleasant, the com- missioners should contract for their custody by the city of New York. The State was becoming solicitous as to the proper care of its female prisoners. Governor DeWitt Clinton in 1828 recommended that there be established somewhere in the State a separate peni- tentiary for women prisoners. Although in the prisons at Auburn and New York there were not over 50 women, their condition was deplorable. They were not separated from each other, they had little work to do, and were mainly if not wholly in charge of male officers. One woman in Auburn Prison had become pregnant while in prison, and had also been severely flogged. The Mount Pleasant prison commissioners were instructed in 1828 to present plans to the Legislature for a woman's prison. By May, 1828, all the male prisoners had been moved to the new prison, which was already becoming popularly known as Sing Sing, » Senate Journal, 1828, p. 44. History of American Prisons 113 from the name of the village. The city of New York bought in this year the abandoned prison in Greenwich for $100,000 — apparently a good bargain for the State. By October, the main building at Mount Pleasant was finished. The prison was 482 feet long, 44 feet wide, and 32 feet high. In this same year, the warden started to build an ''appurtenant building ' ' to the south, at right angles, and toward the river, to be 81 feet long, 40 feet wide, and two stories high, for kitchen and hospital. Later, a second similar building was added, containing a chapel seating 900. The prison was taking on the proportions of a hollow square, with a proposed prison yard 480 feet long by 300 wide. The yard was made entirely of fiUed-in land — which became a most serious cause of the later dampness at Sing Sing. At the end of 1828 there were at Mount Pleasant Prison 513 convicts. In 1828 the commissioners began to make contracts to cut stone for public corporations. Contracts were entered into with the city of New York for stone-cutting and blacksmith work for the local penitentiary; for stone for the court house in Troy; cut stone for the State House in New Haven; cut stone for the City Hall in Albany ; coping stone for Fort Adams in Rhode Island ; and for an iron steamboiler to be sent to ''Mexico in South America. ' ' Workshops were planned for the north side of the prison yard, to take the place of an otherwise necessary wall, and on the west side there was constructed during this year and 1830 a wharf approximately 600 feet long by 30 feet in width. The prison was thus practically completed, and the Legislature had appointed the commissioners a board of inspectors for the year 1830 when sud- denly serious charges of cruelty and maladministration were brought against Captain Lynds by Samuel M. Hopkins, one of the commissioners. The situation that arose was sensational. Captain Lynds was at the height of his prison career. He had achieved what had seemed impossible, in building the greatest and newest prison in the United States without an enclosing wall, and wholly by the labor of des- perate convicts. He was popularly held to be the founder of the y Auburn system. He was undoubtedly its most rigid and uncom-'^ promising adherent. His prisons at Auburn and Sing Sing had been ruled with an iron hand. He had succeeded, conspicuously, as a prison administrator. And now he was publicly charged, before the Legislature, by Mr. Hopkins with, among other things : Ordering prisoners not to complain, under pain of punishment, of want of food. Keeping prisoners on short rations. Tolerating maladministration of office by an assistant keeper who received presents from the food contractor. Charging for extra rations without warrant. Bad faith and evasiveness. Accepting lower grade beef than was contracted for. Cruelty and bad temper. Doubtful pecuniary transactions. Unwarranted discharge of a faithful employe. Unwarranted breach of good relations with the chaplain. y 114 History of American Prisons Without doubt, Mr. Hopkins believed his charges to be tenable. He claimed to have been deceived in Lynds, and he recognized that in now making frank confession of his error, he was exposing himself to severe and mortifying remarks from the enemies of the rigid system he had championed. Hopkins' declaration of his position in 1830 deserves extended quotation, for it foreshadows the inevitable ultimate breakdown of the Auburn system in its original rigor: ''That system of prison government which originated chiefly in this State, and which is known as the Auburn System, begins to prevail extensively in the United States, and attracts great attention in all civilized countries. This system consists chiefly in a discipline which is very strict and summary. To produce such strictness there must be absolute command. '*To insure to the principal keeper the means of safety and strictly gov- erning such dangerous subjects, he must, it is thought, have the appointment of his assistants. We have, therefore, in the midst of a free country, a despot executing his commands through ofl&cers entirely dependent upon his will. It is, then, a despotism, in comparison with which the government of a camp, or a ship of war, is mild and free. "The life and limbs of the convicts; their treatment in sickness; their starvation or other sufferings; their moral treatment and hopes of amend- ment, all depend upon the will of the absolute dictator. We who are com- missioners, have strenuously advocated this system, as unavoidably necessary. It has been supported against a vast array of opinion, and against the author- ity of great names, both in this and other countries; and the Legislature has. in milder terms, adopted it. **But we never advocated such a despotism except in connection with a most effectual plan of inspection and control; with moral discipline also; with religious teaching, by a devoted and attentive chaplain; and the whole plan implies, and so our reports state, that the principal should be a man of humanity, morality and integrity. All this is attainable. Without it I have never supposed that the system can be, or ought to be, endured in a free country, or in any country. . . . "The eyes of mankind are on us. Other nations are waiting with anxiety to see the issues of this experiment.*' Here is the first outspoken and illuminating rebellion against the already famous Auburn system. It is the revelation of the ' * inside ' * by one on the inside, not a diatribe against a system by one who is on the outside, a disgruntled prison official, a newspaper corre- spondent, or a legislator stirring up a sensation. Yet a ** select'* committee of the Senate, after conducting an extended investigation in 1830, exonerated Captain Lynds and his subordinate. They found the several charges either ungrounded, or due to miscon- struction on the part of Hopkins. They condoned the system of legalized cruelty and not infrequent torture that were a keystone of the Auburn system. With the findings in detail of the select committee we can be little concerned. We need not regard their action as a deliberate whitewash. They may well have been in earnest. But there stand out from this investigation several points of permanent truth. The government of the prison was despotic, and had to be so under the Auburn system. There was only one way to success under that system, and that was by the complete acquiescence of the inmate in the rigors of the system. Lynds achieved his results through the History of American Prisons 115 iron hand.^^ He did not believe it to be even the free citizen 's duty to go beyond law and order. He was not a man of vision, but of dogged action. Successful despots need imagination, and so Lynds kept getting into trouble, in pursuit of his methods. Commissioner Hopkins had had many years of experience to draw on in arriving at his conclusions. He had himself conducted two investigations at Auburn Prison. He had himself condoned the Auburn system in official reports — and he had learned much since, especially the way in which novices in investigating prison conditions and prison administration can be misled. However, the salient fact of Hopkins' statement was that the warden, if a despot, could control to an amazing extent the testi- mony of his subordinates in any public investigation. Subordinate officers, on the witness stand, become surprisingly like the three Chinese monkeys, who hear not, see not, and speak not. Their jobs and their salaries depended upon holding their place in the y warden 's estimation, and in the early days, before the advent of the civil service, the subordinate officer, if hired by the warden, was naturally his creature, unless he was of most independent tempera- ment. Moreover, the position of guard and keeper was one paying little, and narratives of prison life in the nineteenth century are filled with assertions of the illiteracy and ignorance and stupidity, not to say cruelty, of the under officers of many a prison. If we seek further reasons for the failure of most investigations, we find that the testimony of the convict himself is discredited, so that the bulk of testimony before a committee is one-sided. In many instances, moreover, the single-mindedness of the investi- gating committee can be questioned. There is the natural desire to suppress, if possible, the development of a public scandal in a State institution. Politics plays an important part in the applica- tion of the ''soft-pedal." When glaring offenses of administration are evident, political pressure is only too frequent to **go easy" with the offender, on the ground that ''he thought he was doing his duty." And so forth. We have cited instances still only too familiar in the effort of commissions and organizations, at times, to arrive at the truth regarding the conduct of penal and correctional institutions. And if this condition is not rare to-day, what must it have been in the early years of American prisons, when there was as yet no organized public opinion in the form of societies or groups, demanding that the truth be known ! The Boston Prison Discipline Society, strong in its activities from its organization in 1825, was an ardent champion of the Auburn system, and had committed itself so thoroughly to the methods employed that it became strikingly one- sided, through the years, in its persistent adherence to the system. What chance had Hopkins, with no similar organization in New York — where the Prison Association of New York was not founded until 1844 — to make headway against a prison administration that did produce results, in dominating the inmates, in reducing mate- ^" Lynds complained to Dr. Julius that he could not get keepers of sufficient ruthlessness. S. Z., p. 201. 116 History of American Prisons rially the prison expenses, and in giving the public a respite from the tales of horror and demoralization that emanated from the old prison in New York city ? And so, with the exoneration of Captain Lynds ; with the passing of Hopkins and his fellow building commissioners; with the com- pletion of the cellhouse and the wharf; with the creation of a prison yard; with the appointment of three new inspectors; and with the reappointment of Captain Lynds as warden, the first period of Mount Pleasant Prison's history is at an end. Yet, before we leave this initial stage of the history of Mount Pleasant, we can record, as stimulated by the study of the earliest years of Mount Pleasant Prison, some noteworthy and radical suggestions of Captain Basil Hall, of the Royal Navy, who traveled in the United States during 1827 and 1828.^^ He visited Mount Pleasant Prison, and was a graphic observer. He pictured the fearful monotony of the daily life of the convict. ''The convicts who are sentenced to confinement in the State prisons of America are chiefly such as in England would be executed or banished. ' ' From Captain Hall has come the earliest suggestion we have traced of the plan of reduction of sentence served in prison — an actual proposal to establish a commutation system of the kind that later became customary, although not within the period covered by this study. Captain Hall's proposal therefore had all the virtues of a radical and highly constructive plan — and like other similarly advanced plans, found no hearing from the ** practical" prison administrators of the day. ''Why, if disobedience be punished, should not obedience be rewarded? And how easy it would be to give the convicts a direct and immediate interest in conforming to the rules of the place! Suppose a prisoner were sentenced to several years' confinement; then, if he behave well for a week together, let one day be struck off his term of confinment; if he continue to deport himself correctly for a month, let his term of detention be shortened a fortnight; and if he shall go steadily on for six months, then let half a year be struck off his whole period; and so on, according to any ratio that may be found suitable. *'. . . It must surely be the wish of society in general to let a prisoner out as soon as possible, consistently with a certain salutary effect on himself and on others. It has always seemed to me, that by the process of giving the convict a constant, personal interest in behaving well during his confinement, not only might the seeds of virtue be sown, but the ground put in good order for their future growth. ... If the plan I suggest were adopted, the evils of uncertainty (of sentence) which are great would fall entirely to the prisoner's share, not to that of the public, from being made contingent upon their own conduct. ... Of course, the pardoning power would, need to be tied up more strictly than it is, and imperatively limited by law. ' ' To-day, in the prisons of the United States, will be found printed commutation tables, resembling logarithmic charts, indicating for the assistance of the clerks of the prisons the exact ''time off" from the sentences that the inmates may earn through good conduct and other activities. The dream of Captain Hall has come true, long since, and to-day even the commutation tables are disappearing gradually in favor of the exercise of the indeterminate sentence. ^ Basil Hall. " Travels in North America in the Years 1827-28," pp. 36-44. History of American Prisons 117 But at the time of Captain Hall 's travels and the publication of his narrative, his proposal found no echo in practice. The vicious pardoning of prisoners continued, forming the only inducement to inmates to conduct themselves properly within the walls. Instead of the erection of an honest and sympathetic system of rewards for good conduct, in a commutation system, the States continued to maintain the arbitrary, unfair, and often reprehensible method of the exercise of grace, through the chief magistrate of the State, the governor. Like the proposals of Doctor Rush, the dreams of Thomas Eddy, the hopes of Louis Dwight for a farm whereon prisoners could recover their normal habits after a term in prison, the futile efforts of Warden Goodell at Auburn for a few brief months to maintain a prison system by loving-kindness, and the more successful undertaking of Reverend Mr. Wells at the House of Reformation in Boston to conduct a boys' reform school on a basis of practical interest, participation in administration, and an abundance of wholesome recreation, so did Captain Hall find his proposals far ahead of his time. And to-day, the historian, able now to chronicle the unquestioned success of all these once proposed methods, as exemplified by noteworthy ** going concerns" of the present day, pauses, and dreams of what might have happened, that would have changed the course of prison history, had Rush, and Eddy, and Hall, and Lieber, and Wells, the '* theorists, '^ been understood — and followed. CHAPTER XI THE WESTERN AND THE EASTERN PENITENTIARIES OF PENNSYLVANIA It is a coincidence that on the afternoon when I type this chap- ter of the study of early American prison customs, one of the earliest ''customs," namely, a prison mutiny, is announced in the press as occurring in the very prison that we are about to consider — The Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania. A hundred and three years after the authorization of the prison by the Pennsyl- vania Legislature, Pittsburg police and other armed forces are keeping a throng of inmates at bay, within the prison yard, where burning shop buildings rise behind the wild prisoners. Prison riots are not frequent to-day. The ordinary humane methods of progressive prison wardens have made such an occur- rence a rarity. Hardly a serious riot has occurred in Eastern prisons in the last ten years. But in the early days of American prisons, we have seen that they were frequent. And it was to make impossible the mingling of the prisoners, and the consequent plot- ting, that both the Auburn system of ''silence," and the Pennsyl- vania system of "separation" were invented and put into effect during the third decade of the nineteenth century. In 1818, the State of Pennsylvania took the radical step of authorizing a prison, with entire separation of each prisoner from the other in a separate cell, and absolute separation of the prisoner from any work. The difference between the Auburn system and the Pennsylvania system was the difference between association with silence and separation. The Auburn system ultimately spread throughout the United States, but had practically no structural influence in Europe. The Pennsylvania system, on the other hand, after being imitated in New Jersey and Rhode Island in the State prisons there, was soon abandoned in the United States, except in the State of its origin. On the other hand, the Pennsylvania system became the standard in many parts of Europe. Around the comparative merits of the two systems was waged for several generations the greatest contest ever developed in prison reform. Acrimonious and often misleading statements and argu- ments were a part of the battle, which was conducted from head- quarters, respectively, in Boston and Philadelphia, the homes of the Boston Prison Discipline Society and the Pennsylvania Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. Europe as well as the United States debated the two competing systems, in conferences national and international. Even to-day, the European system of prison architecture differs radically from the American, and now, after nearly a century, the architectural principle of the "outside cell, ' ' or the cell with the window to the outer air, as distinguished [118] HisTOP-Y OF American Prisons 119 from the ''inside cell," or the cell with the door furnishing the only light from a corridor between the cell and the outside wall of the cellhouse,, is beginning to be adopted once more in American prison architecture, a vindication of the Pennsylvania principle. Yet the two systems were more alike, from the beginning, than they were different from each other. They were similar in holding / to the fundamental principle that prisoners under no circumstances / should communicate with each other. The two systems held, fur-^ thermore, that prisoners should he separate from each other in individual cells at night. .^ The basic difference between the Auburn system and the Pennsyl- \ vania system was, that whereas the Pennsylvania system extended I the principle of the separation of convicts from each other to cover I every minute of the twenty-four hours, or in other words, to provide / for the perpetual separation of inmates from each other, the Auburn / system brought the convicts together during the day in workshops I and in the messhall, but under enforced perpetual silence. The I Pennsylvania system became popularly known as the ' ' separate / system, ' ' and the Auburn system as the ' ' silent system. ' ' The Pennsylvania Law of 1818 provided for the erection in Pittsburg of a penitentiary, which should be so constructed as to provide cells for the separate confinement of prisoners. So intense was the feeling that a clear departure should be made from all previous pernicious methods, that the new prison reform movement in Pennsylvania advocated, and successfully, that in the prison to be constructed at Pittsburg there should be absolute deprivation / of work, as well as enforced perpetual solitude. The new prison was to abandon all theory of classification — which was the chief contribution of the Walnut Street Prison of 1790 — and instead was to provide a solitary cell for each prisoner's constant use. In short, each cell was thereby to become a miniature prison in itself, and classification was therefore unnecessary.^ Three years later, in 1821, a similar law provided for the erection, likewise on the principle of solitary confinement, of a prison for 250 prisoners in Philadelphia.^ The State was thus embarked seriously upon an experiment heretofore untried in this country, and which would be decisive. No reasonable expense was to be spared to make these prisons adequate and suitable. By 1826 the Pittsburg prison was finished, and 20 prisoners were admitted. It had cost $165,346, and provided a total of 190 individ- ual cells,^ at a cost per cell of $978.95. The prison was built in an unusual form, that of a semi-circle. The cells, ** forming the circumference of the circle, were built in a double range, being placed back to back, as at Auburn, but in the form of a circle, the diameter / of which was 320 feet; part of the cells facing the boundary wall, and the ^ other part fronting the large internal area. . . . The cells were each about 9 feet long and 7 feet wide. ... In the front of each cell was a small yard, 6 feet wide, having a doorway in front." 1 B. and T., p. 5. 2 Richard Vaux. Sketch, p. 33. « Report of Shaler-Wharton-King, p. 36. 120 History of American Prisons By 1827, this Western Penitentiary, as it was called, was in operation, with a few persons confined therein. Each prisoner was shut up, night and day, in a cell, but without any employment. The cells moreover, had been built so small that the maintenance of any trade was impossible that required any equipment. On the other hand, the architect had failed to build a sound-proof prison, and the prisoners were able to talk with each other from cell to cell through gratings.* In short, the worst possible results had been achieved. The prisoners could not work, but they could by conversation mutually contaminate each other.^ The State had sunk nearly $200,000 in a prison that was worse than useless, on the basis of the adopted system. The board of managers of this Pittsburg prison reported as^arly as 1828 to the Legislature that it was hardly practicable, with the present plan of the penitentiary, to carry into effect complete solitary confinement, without keeping the prisoners constantly immured in their respective cells.^ The board held this to be so inimical to health that they were therefore allowing the prisoners to exercise before the cells of the other prisoners in the corridors.' One of the inspectors even urged the establishment of workhouses, where the prisoners might work in association as at Auburn. By 1833, the board had bluntly recommended that the prison should be either sold or demolished, and in the same year the Legislature passed an act authorizing the demolition of the cells within the walls of the Western Penitentiary, and the construction of cells similar to those that had meanwhile been built at the Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia.^ The Pittsburg prison was by its construction suitable neither for separate confinement nor for labor. This prison had no significance in the prison reform movement, save to point out a glaring and very expensive mistake 4»-^).eiiolQgicaI^rincip3^^ Meanwhile, attention was being fastened upon the plans for a new prison in Philadelphia. This institution was to be capable of holding 250 prisoners **on the principle of the solitary confinement of the convicts."^ Eleven citizens were appointed a commission to secure a site and build a prison thereon. No provision was made in the law as to the employment or non-employment of convicts. Plans presented by the architect, John Haviland, were selected in competition in 1821. Haviland was an English architect who had taken up residence in Philadelphia.^^ A site for the prison was chosen, at * * Cherry Hill, ' ' several miles from the city, of about ten acres. In this new prison we find the first effort — and a most impres- sive effort — on the part of a State to erect a massive, imposing and even monumental edifice. It was easy, of course, to pass in *B. and T. s B. P. D. S. Reports of 1828. p. 193. « B. P. D. S., 1830, p. 364. 'B. P. D. S. Reports of 1828, p. 193. 8 R. Vaux, p. 33. •Fourth Report. Inspectors of E. P., 1832, p. 22. " Julius, d. am. Besserungs Systeme, p. 5. History of American Prisons 121 thought from the stronghold-type to the fortress and monumental type. The aim of the building commissioners was to give to this new prison an unusual degree of solidity, durability and grave impressiveness. Like the other prisons we have described, at Auburn and Sing Sing, the Eastern Penitentiary has endured unto our day, and is still in use. It was, at the time of its building, the most extensive edifice in the United States.^^ A certain George Smith wrote in 1829, of this prison : "The Penitentiary is the only edifice in the country calculated to convey to our citizens the external appearance of those magnificent and picturesque castles of the middle ages, which contribute to embellish the scenery of Europe. ' ' The front entrance was called the most imposing in the United States. The cornerstone of the prison was laid on May 22, 1823, by Roberts Vaux, one of the commissioners, and a man who wrote much of prison reform in his period. It was the earliest example of the utilization of an American prison as a subject for ponderous and elaborate architecture. Although the building was thus initiated in 1823, only three of the wings had been completed by 1825, and these contained but 114 cells.^^ The prison was not occupied until 1829. The interven-^^ ing period was one of serious and prolonged deliberation as to the proper methods of administration and discipline to be introduced into the new prison. The opinion was by no means universal that the separate confinement of prisoners at all times, and particularly without employment, was a sound principle. Auburn Prison was beginning to be heard from. In the old Walnut Street Prison there had been but a few cells devoted to solitary confinement. The new prison in Philadelphia was to con- fine all prisoners thus — and at this date the sentiment was strongly held that no employment of the prisoners during their incarcera- tion would be admissible. The following arguments, summarized by the writer, were urged in favor of the extreme plan of solitary confinement without work.^^ It should be remembered that the experience of Auburn Prison with solitary confinement without work in 1822 and 1823 was not well known at this time in Philadelphia : Solitary confinement without labor would effectively separate the prisoners from each other, and therefore from their mutually corrupting influences. No remedy could be otherwise found for the radical evils of association, other than close, strict, solitary confinment, night and day, without labor. Solitary confinement, without labor, is the severest kind of punishment to the individual convict. Man craves social intercourse. Isolation is a bitter penalty — also a vigorous and constant warning to potential criminals. y^ Solitary confinement without labor operates directly and forcibly upon the ^ mind. If all external sources of excitement are removed, reflection, remorse and perhaps reformation will ensue. The term of imprisonment could be shortened, because the end in view — repentance and reformation — could be attained in a shorter time. The pun- ishment, moreover, being severer, the term of imprisonment should be shortened. " Description of the Penitentiary. G. W. Smith, 1829, in R. Vaux, p. 56. Notices on the Original, etc. 12 Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, pace 128. " Shaler- Wharton-King, p. 17ff. 122 History of American Prisons These early arguments were violently opposed by the newly- formed Boston Prison Discipline Society, the New England militant champion of the Auburn system.^* Although the Society's head- quarters were in Boston the range of interest of the members, and particularly of its tireless secretary, Rev. Louis Dwight, covered the entire country, wherever prisons were being contemplated, built or operated. The harrowing experiences of Auburn Prison with Solitary confinement without labor came gradually to make a deep impression upon the Philadelphians. Auburn Prison was, moreover, already also emphasizing the great economic value of keeping prisoners at work productively. And so, after 100 cells had been built in the new prison at Philadelphia, the work was halted, and a commission of the Legislature was created in 1826, consisting of Charles Shaler, Edward King, and T. I. Wharton, to report as soon as possible on the best system of prison discipline that might be adopted. On December 20th, 1827, the commission, after disposing in their report of capital punishment, mutilations, brandings, whippings, transportation, banishment and simple imprisonment (with the inevitable consequent commingling of prisoners) as out of the question in a sound prison discipline, came out flat-footedly in opposition to the hitherto accepted principle, being tried in Pitts- burg, of separate imprisonment without labor. Said the commission : ^^ Solitary confinement with labor is just as effective as solitary confinement without labor in preventing the communication of prisoners with each other. Solitary confinement without labor is not at all an equitable punishment. To some prisoners it would be a fearful penalty, to others far less a punishment. / Solitary confinement without labor will produce no more serious or valuable /reflections on the mind of the convict than when broken by regular intervals V of work. Solitary confinement without labor would be a total expense to the State instead of a system bringing a return to the State from the labor of the convict. Solitary confinment without labor produces bodily infirmities, disease and insanity — as shown by the experience of Auburn Prison. Solitary confinement without labor renders the convict unable to pursue an honest calling after his discharge from prison, because of his total idleness within prison walls. The Legislative commission then proceeded to analyze the pro- ject in general of solitary imprisonment with labor. The advan- tages were found to be the following : ^^ The entire separation of the convicts from any society. The acquisition by the convict of habits of industry. The contribution by the convict through his industry to the expense of maintaining the prison. Moreover, a considerable variety of occupations could be pro- vided, such as weaving, cobbling, tailoring; and for the more extensive occupations, such as required large space, separate 1* B. p. D. S., 1827, p. 91. « Shaler- Wharton-King, p. 27ff, " Shaler-Wharton-King, p. 4Sff. History of American Prisons 123 individual workshops were possible. Exercise could be also ob- tained in the small individual yards, directly behind the cells on the ground floor. But the commission went still further. They even ventured to disagree with the great bulk of public opinion in Philadelphia favorable to the above-mentioned system. They found serious disadvantages in the above projects. The variety of occupations that were possible in separate confinement was necessarily limited, as was also the supply of light or air in the cells. Sedentary occupations were detrimental to health. The impossibility of a sufficient profit from the labor of prisoners under such circum- stances was emphasized. Moreover, there could be only occasional observation of prisoners by officials. Discipline of convicts who refused to labor would be difficult, it was said. And in conclusion, therefore, the commission recommended that in the prison yard of the new prison there be erected, for the pur- poses of completing the Eastern Penitentiary, a building on the style of Mount Pleasant Prison, or of Wethersfield in Connecticut, with 800 cells, and also that workshops be erected for the joint labor of convicts. The said prison should be supplementary to the cellblocks already erected. In recommending these features, the commission's attitude was heretical, from the standpoint of the Philadelphia group of reform- ers, and the recommendations were lost in the sand. The prison, when finally completed, was practically on the original plan, as adopted by the commission appointed to build the prison. This issue as to the relative value of the several systems: Pitts- burgh, Auburn, Philadelphia, was a very intense one among the prison reform forces of the time, as is evidenced by the following quotation from a letter written by William Roscoe, in his old age, to Dr. Hosack, an American friend of Thomas Eddy in New York: ^8 "The relinquishment of it (i. e., the principle of labor) for the Bastile system of solitary confinement would have grieved me more than I can express ; but, thank God, my dread of that is over; and I shall now die in peace, convinced that the time will arrive when my own country (England) will follow the example. *' Which was a true prophecy. Let us now become acquainted with the extraordinarily carefully worked-out plan of the new penitentiary, unique in the United States, but clearly showing English influences. No other prison of this kind survives at all intact in the United States to-day. One can, however, still visit the Eastern Penitentiary and find the main architectural scheme of the prison well preserved. It is a notable historical monument. The prison was located about two and a half miles from the city of Philadelphia, and about one-half mile east of the Schuylkill River." The yard wall, of stone, 30 feet high, 12 feet thick at the bottom and tapering to 2% feet in thickness at the top, enclosed " Description mainly from B. P D. S. Rpport for 1827. "Life of Thomas Eddy, p. 324. 124 History of American Prisons approximately twelve acres. This wall, including the keeper's house (a part of the south wall) cost about $200,000, which would be a most noteworthy expenditure for such purposes even in these days. The facade of the prison was 670 feet in length. In the center of the yard was a rotunda or "observatory," from which seven cellblocks diverged, like the rays of a star — an architectural device that gave rise to the term — Eadial Plan. The cells, 11 feet 9 inches long, by 7 feet 6 inches wide,^^ were arranged in two rows, in each of the seven cellblocks, and they faced a central corridor, which extended from the rotunda to the end of each cellblock. A curious architectural development was the individual ' ' exercis- ing yard," 8 by 20 feet,^^ connected on the outside of the building with each cell. The walls surrounding these exercising yards were 11 feet 6 inches high.^^ An opening from the cell to the yard enabled the prisoner to go out into the yard for exercise at specified times. There was no door into the cell from the central corridor of the cellblock, but there was a small orifice opening from the cell into the corridor, through which the guard in the corridor might observe the prisoner, and deliver to him his food. In the construction, in later years, of the four last wings, doors were provided from the cells into the central corridor. There was an outer door of wood, with a small, funnel-shaped observation hole in the door. The inner door was of iron grating, with a small opening in the upper half, through which food could be passed into the cell, as well as laundry, labor material, and the like.^ When the inmate was let out into the yard, he could be watched by the guard, either from the wall, or by opening the door of the yard. The entrance to the cell from the yard was secured by double doors, one of grated iron, and the other of plank. In the second story of the cellblock, where obviously no yards were possible, the prisoner was allowed an extra cell.^^ Each cell in the prison was used for dwelling purposes, was furnished with a bedstead, clothes rail, seat, shelf, tin cup, wash basin, victuals pan, looking glass, combs, scrubbing brush, broom, straw mattress, one sheet, one blanket and one coverlid. There was a toilet and water spigot in every cell. When De Metz and Blouet visited the Eastern Penitentiary late in the thirties, they found that ''most prisoners prefer the upper cells to the lower ones with courts, because the lower cells are cold and damp and never receive any sun, because shielded by high walls. The stronger convicts like the lower cells because there is more chance for exercise. The cells are very hot in summer and damp in other seasons. High walls prevent circulation of air. The prison officials thought to give up the courts, but their elimination would have incited to attempts at escape underneath the walls.^ "R. Vaux, Sketch, p. 62. » R. Vaux, Sketch, p. 24. ^ R., Vaux, Sketch, p. 62. 22 R. Vaux, Sketch, p. 62. 28 Julius. S. Z., p. 180. 2*De Metz and Blouet, p. 56. History of American Prisons 125 The waterclosets were primitive, and permitted conversation between prisoners in adjacent cells, by means of the pipes, but only during the ten to fifteen minutes a day while the pipes were being flushed. To guard against such conversation, serious penal- ties were inflicted upon inmates thus transgressing, and a force of guards were stationed in the central corridors of the wings to spy upon the prisoners during this process.^^ For ventilation, there were several holes, about three inches in diameter, near the floor of the cell, passing through the wall to the exercise yard. There were also several flues. The method of heating was by hot air. The prisoners were fed in their cells. Every part of the building was so constructed that it should never be necessary to remove the prisoner from his cell and exercising yard, except when sick. No chapel and no schoolrooms were pro- vided, and no places for labor except the cells. It is clear from the above description that the architectural features of the Eastern Penitentiary were worked out with much deliberation and system. Consequently, it is of special interest to trace the origin of this general plan of construction, particularly in view of the remarkable influence it had in the following decades upon the construction of prisons in European countries. It has been quite generally assumed that the design of the Eastern Penitentiary was original with John Haviland, the architect. But we must first of all remember that Haviland was from England, and but recently settled in Philadelphia.^^ The supposed ** American '^ origin of the Pennsylvania plan is unquestionably an error. As early as 1820, the London Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline had sent to the Philadelphia Society for Alle- viating the Miseries of Public Prisons a book of architectural plans of prisons that the London Society had recently published.^ The London Society 's proposed plan for a county jail for four hundred persons embodied a clear-cut radial scheme of six wings, and a central *'hub" or rotunda. The similarity of the Haviland plan to this and to other types of English local prisons is far too great to be a coincidence. Haviland 's plan was a clear case of borrowing an idea. The radial type, indeed, had appeared in England in the case of the Ipswich County Jail as early as 1790.^^ Haviland developed the radial plan, especially by the creation of the central building as an observatory, and by the addition of exercise yards attached to each ground floor cell. But the Eastern Penitentiary is a developed imitation of earlier English prison plans. Furthermore, William Crawford, who visited the United States in 1832 as an official representative of the British Government, claimed that the main principles of the system installed at the Eastern Penitentiary were in force as early as 1794, approximately, in the Gloucester, England, penitentiary. With some trifling differ- 25 Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 180. 2« London Society for Prison Discipline. Report of the Committee for 1820, p. 36. Rules for Gaols. 1821, p. 45ff. 27 .Julius, d. amk. B. S., p. 4. 28 On the Form and Construction of Prisons, London, 1826. 126 History of American Prisons ences in its arrangements, the Eastern Penitentiary seemed to Crawford to be but a counterpart of the Bridewell at Glasgow, Scotland, a prison put into operation by 1824.^^ However, great the similarity was in the matter of methods of administration at Gloucester or Glasgow, the direct line of descent of the Pennsylvania system is easy to trace on American soil, without attributing preponderating influence to the British Isles. As early as 1788, the Philadelphia Prison Society stated that, on the whole, they were unanimously of the opinion that solitary confinement and hard labor, with total abstention from spirituous liquors, would *' prove the most effective means of reforming these unhappy creatures.^'^ In 1827, the estimated cost of the prison, when it should be com- pleted, was $500,000 for 250 prisoners, or $2,000 per prisoner, an enormous sum even for the present day, and one which at the time brought down severe criticism upon the prison. The New England prison reform group did not fail to seize the chance to contrast this huge expenditure with the expenditure for Wethersfield, the Connecticut State Prison (which is another prison still in use to-day). This prison was erected in 1827 for approximately $35,000 for 136 prisoners,^" an average per capita expenditure of nearly $258.00. For several years, the completion of the Eastern Penitentiary y was held up, because of the vigorous attacks upon the general plan ^ of structure and administration. The Boston Society annually raised its voice in loud protests. At what amazing per capita cost was this prison being built ! How would it be possible to exclude the possibilities of communication between prisoners? Look at Pittsburgh's failure! How nasty to make of each cell a water closet! What folly not to realize that a prison should make as much as possible from the labor of prisoners toward the mainte- nance of the institution! Was not Auburn Prison practically paying all its expenses? Gershom Powers, the Auburn warden, dilated upon many structural disadvantages of the plan.*^ The Shaler-King-Wharton report above referred to had deterred for a time the Legislature from making appropriations for the completion of the buildings, but in the end the building commission carried the day. While the erection of the new prison was being thus delayed, conditions of lawlessness in and about Philadelphia were becoming most serious — reminiscent, indeed, of similar terrifying conditions prior to the establishment of the Walnut Street Prison in 1790 as a penitentiary. In the report of the board of inspectors of the Eastern Penitentiary for 1836, it was stated, in retrospect, that, immediately prior to the opening of the new prison in 1829 : ''it was no novelty to hear of combinations of rogues for the purpose of housebreaking, counterfeiting, robbery in the public streets, and violence of 2» Crawford, p. 13. »0B.i Pv D. S., Vol. I, p. 124. 81 G. S. General Description, etc., pp. 86fif. 82 Report of Joint Committee of Leg. of Pa., relative to E. P«. of Pa., Harnsburg, 1835, p. 20. History of American Prisons 127 all kinds. It was no uncommon thing for the magistracy and other officers to form 'possies' to visit the haunts of vice and the purlieus of wretchedness to ferret out felons. Seldom was there a conviction above the grade of petty larceny but disclosed a chain of complicated villiany involving the committal of two or three more. **Our court calendar exhibited an array of crime at each time, startling to the philanthropist and arguing a deplorable state of society. . . . An auxiliary police was of necessity at times established by volunteers from the citizens who patrolled the streets to secure their sleeping brethren from the insidious assaults of the incendiary and burglar." The first inmate was received by the Eastern Penitentiary on October 25th, 1829. From the above description, it is clear that the institution opened very much on the defensive. During 1829, a board of inspectors had been appointed, to take over the manage- ment of the institution. The chairman of the board was Charles S. Coxe, a judge of the district court of Philadelphia. Other mem- bers were Josiah Randall, a prominent lawyer of the same city; Roberts Vaux, a philanthropist of means, whose name and that of his son, Richard Vaux, were for many decades associated with prison reform; John Swift, a lawyer, and Daniel H. Miller, a merchant and State senator.^ The board appointed as warden Samuel R. Wood, a Quaker ; he was a manufacturer, and had visited European prisons. He had been one of the building commis- sioners,^^ and was called a ** practical" man. Dr. Franklin Bache, who later became noted for the comprehensive and valuable statis- tics he furnished regarding the health of the prisoners, and who was a great grandson of Benjamin Franklin,^* was appointed prison J physician. In 1829, a supplementary law was passed, providing that separate confinement of prisoners, mth labor, should be the discipline of the prison. Uniform rules were adopted by the Legislature for both the Western and the Eastern Penitentiaries. Among these rules were the following : The warden should be appointed semi-annually. The inspectors should serve without pay, and should visit the Penitentiary at least twice a week. There should be an unpaid chaplain. (This provision of **no salary'* worked to the great disadvantage of the institution for many years.) The inspectors on their visits should speak to the prisoners apart from any of the officials of the prison. The warden must reside In the prison, and must visit each prisoner at least once a day. He should appoint the under-keepers, called overseers, and must not absent himself from the prison over night without the written permission of the inspectors. Keepers were obligated to inspect the condition of the prisoners at least three times a day. The physician must visit every prisoner at least twice each week, and oftener if necessary. He must also examine each prisoner on reception. In addition to the permission given to certain State officials to visit the prison and prisoners, the same permission was given to the Acting Committee for the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. 82 R. Vaux. Sketch, p. 83. " Second Annual Report of Board of Inspectors. «*De Metz and Blouet, p. 32. Doctor Bache before serving as physician In the Eastern Penitentiary had been In a similar capacity in .the Walnut Street Prison for 12 years. 128 History of American Prisons The same curious custom of a final interview by the warden with the prisoner which was customary at Auburn Prison, was made mandatory by the rules and regulations at Philadelphia. After the interview, the convict was to receive four dollars from the State ''whereby the temptation to commit offenses against society, before employment can be obtained, may be obviated." To what extent four dollars would stand between a released prisoner and another crime, were it impossible for him to find immediate employment, is a question not hard to answer. The State of New York was giving to the released convict only three dollars. In neither Auburn nor the Eastern Penitentiary was there any chance for the prisoner to earn any money toward his own support when he should emerge from prison. Here again, one has to wonder at the wretchedly false economy and poor psychology that would send a convict out, almost literally stripped of all means to make an honest living, and cursed with the stigma of a prison sentence. Yet the thing happens to-day, in the State of New York. The ten dollars which is given to the convict on release amounts to no more than the three dollars of a century ago. The clothes he receives are generally shed at the first pawnbrokers, if possible. They have the prison pattern and the uncouth cut. The man who during the period of incarceration has been earning the bitterly ironical sum of one and one-half cents a day, which may be dimin- ished by punishments, is still typical, upon his release, of the folly of discharging the convict so poorly equipped with money as to make the very presence of money in the possession of others a temptation to crime. It is only in States where a system of labor prevails that secures for the prisoner some chance to earn, if not a wage, at least some money for overtime work, that the prisoner is freed in part from this grave condition on his release from prison. Returning to the Eastern Penitentiary, we find that although the sponsors of the plan of constant separation of prisoners, with labor, were positive that the new prison would be **an apparatus for the expeditious, certain and economical eradication of vice, and the production of reformation. ' ' " Richard Vaux, writing in 1872 an historical treatment of the Eastern Penitentiary, stated ^ that when the prison was ready for the reception of the first inmate, in 1829, little was known as to the effect of Ihe solitary discipline on the prisoners. Said Vaux : *' Indeed, the discipline itself was a theory. For many years following, it was not possible to do more than supervise the administration and put it into working order. It required some time to settle what were the conse- quences of the discipline. ... To finish all the buildings, suffer the more serious criticisms of the management, and harmonize almost irrecon- cilable opinions, if not feelings, among those who were first connected with 86 G. W. Smith in Vaux, p. 58. »»p. 85. History of American Prisons 129 the administration of the Penitentiary, distracted the minds of those who were charged with the government of the institution. . . . From 1829 to 1835, the attention of the inspectors was not wholly concentrated on the workings of the system. . . . The period from 1829 to 1849 was one of experiment and experience. From 1849 to 1870 one of development and progress. ' ' The seventh and last wing of the prison, on the original plan of Haviland, was not finished until 1836, when the institution offered a total of 586 cells.®^ "Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 129. CHAPTER XII THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF PRISON LABOR IN NEW YORK Within ten years from the time when the Auburn system was established, in 1823, there developed out of the much-praised *' perfection ' ' of the system itself an unexpected and highly com- plicated problem. For just when Auburn Prison began to boast exultantly that it had ceased to be a financial burden to the State, and that its annual earnings were beginning to exceed its annual disbursements, the ''mechanics'^ of the State became violently aroused to the threatening competition of convict labor with ''free labor." Moreover, the Mount Pleasant Prison at Sing Sing became also, as early as 1831, six years after its founding, a target of bitter criticism from mechanics in New York City, who claimed that the prison was making contracts to sell marble at prices far below those possible in the open market. The prison was furnishing to a museum in New York marble for $500 that would cost from $7,000 to $8,000 in the open market.^ This led to one of the first of the almost innumerable petitions to the Legislature from mechanics during the next decade for relief from this growing and menacing evil. Labor was becoming at Auburn and Mount Pleasant prisons a source of profit to the State, through the letting of the prisoners' labor to contractors. Auburn Prison was, by 1825, a great smooth- running industrial machine — when suddenly two highly disturb- ing lines of attack upon the system developed. Hostile criticism was leveled at the alleged barbarous punishments necessary under the Auburn system. The second line of attack was from the out- raged mechanics of the State, who saw their industrial life threat- ened with ruin through the convict competition. These two controversial questions became the chief problems of prison administration in the State of New York between 1825 and 1845, the period we are now to consider. We have already alluded, in Chapter Ten, to the early investi- gation, in 1826, by the special commission of which Samuel M. Hopkins was chairman of Auburn Prison's alleged cruelty to inmates. Having dismissed as practically ungrounded the accusa- tions of brutality, the commissioners addressed themselves to the system of labor at the prison. Endorsing the principle of letting out the labor of prisoners within the prison to contractors, they mildly criticised the prison authorities for having let contracts without previous adequate public announcement. Obviously, verbal announcement "around Auburn" was not a sure and impartial way to advertise for bids. That favoritism could thereby benefit chosen friends or business acquaintances was clear. 1 Assembly Document No. 279, 1831. 1130] History of American Prisons 131 Moreover, the commissioners found the contracts bringing in alto- gether too little money. We read between the lines the significance of the facts that the tailors earned for the prison an average of but 15 cents a day, the coopers from 15 to 22 cents, the shoemakers 25 cents, and the weavers from 10 to 15 cents. Both Captain Lynds and Captain Powers favored the letting of contracts without gen- eral bidding. They held the dangers of intercourse between irresponsible contractors and prisoners to be so great as to make it imperative that the warden should have broad liberty to choose responsible contractors. It was at this period (1828) that Auburn Prison announced its confidence that no further appropriations would be needed from the State for maintenance.- This was a tremendously powerful argu- ment for the continuation, intact, of the new system. (And this kind of an argument is to-day, in 1921, a powerful argument for the retention of contract labor in prisons.) Other States were making money from systematic prison labor. Hard and steady employment seemed likely at last to banish the nightmare of heavy annual State expenditures for maintenance and upkeep. Moses C. Pillsbury had become warden of the New Hampshire State Prison in 1818. The loss to the State in the previous year had been $4,325. From 1822 to 1826 the net proceeds (chiefly from stone cutting) had been, after defraying every expense, $7,596.^ Massachusetts State Prison announced a profit of $9,151 in 1825 and $8,819 in 1826. Even the female department of the Maryland State Prison, under the able Mrs. Rachel Peri jo as matron, changed its balance from an average annual deficit, before she came, in 1822, of $1,099 to an average annual surplus of $492.® Such reports were in striking contrast to the annual expense of the Walnut Street Prison of about $30,000, and to the continuing deficit of the State Prison in New York city, that had since 1797 cost the State a total of $1,237,343.^ Massachusetts had expended more than $300,000 for State prison maintenance.* Old Newgate in Connecticut had cost that State since 1791 more than $200,000,^ but now, within six months of the establishment of the new State prison at Wethersfield in 1827 (see Chapter Seven), the net earnings of 97 convicts for the State were $1,017, over all expenses of management and support.^ And Captain Lynds, the warden at Mount Pleasant, said in this same year that he would ask no greater privilege from the State, when the prison at Sing Sing should be completed, than to receive the earnings of convicts, above every expense for food, medical attendance, moral instruc- tion, keeping, etc., and that he would enter into a bond for $100,000 to release the State from all further charges for current expenses, in consideration of receiving the proceeds of the labor of the convicts. 9 *B. p. D. S. 1828, p. 164 — G. Powers. Report, p. 48. » B. P. D. S. 1826, p. 34. ^ B. P. D. S. 1828, p. 161. » B. P. D. S. 1827, p. 113. « B. P. D. S. 1828, p. 163. ' B. P. D. S. 1827, p. 35. « B. P. D. S. 1828, p. 161. * B. P. D. S. 1828, p. 164. 132 History of American Prisons In short, convicts were practically for the first time being turned not only into assets for the State, but into a profitable business for certain firms or individuals on the outside who contracted for the labor of the convicts, and made ' ' good money. ' ' It looked like a good bargain * * all around. ' ' The prison philanthropists, like the Boston Prison Discipline Society, were maintaining that economy was concomitant with moral improvement in a prison administra- tion, thereby tacitly putting the stamp of approval on the making of money in a prison. The public, wearied with alleged visionary schemes of reformation, was glad to have a burden lifted from the taxpayers of the times. The rigid discipline of Auburn and Sing Sing prisons appealed to the public, which had heard much about the bad management and the high cost of the prisons of the past, and also of the debauchery and demoralization attendant apparently upon the existence of prisons. The cheap cost of con- struction of the new type of prison, as at Sing Sing and at Wethersfield, by the labor of prisoners, was a further appealing argument. It must have appeared to the thoughtful minds of the period that at last the secret of efficient prison management had been revealed. We can therefore readily understand why the new prison system sprang into popularity, why severe punishments were in the main tolerated, or why excuses were found for their continuance, and why the emphasis of the Auburn system shifted increasingly from producing reformation to producing profits for the State. The prison system was now appealing to the State where the State was most easily influenced — in its pocketbook. Penal servitude was becoming a profitable business to the State, and the general feeling that prisoners should be severely disciplined was being gratified at the same time — and justified. We are analyzing these formative years in some detail because it was in just these years that there was being firmly moulded the system of prison discipline that became the American standard for generations. American life and standards of to-day are well under- stood only as one knows the history of our people. That special phase of American institutional life represented by our prisons, with their remarkable and often intolerably stupid and unjust practices, cannot be understood except as we survey the past. Powerful economic and moral forces have in the past conditioned and traditionalized our penal institutions. Administrative habits of yesterday and even of to-day, strong and dominant with the force of long usage, are but the acquired characteristics of the periods of the past. The era that we are now surveying was primarily one in which such methods and principles became fixed. Historically, therefore, the period from approximately 1820 to 1840 is of exceptional significance in the development of American prison customs. The net earnings of certain prisons continued to be conspicuous during the next few years. Wethersfield in 1828 earned $3,229 History op American Prisons 133 above every expense ;^^ Maryland's penitentiary at Baltimore registered net earnings of $9,804. In 1829, Wethersfield earned $5,068 over all expenses; Auburn nearly $6,000. By the end of March, 1832, Wethersfield showed net earnings for four and one- half years of $25,853 ; the deficit of old Newgate for the same period would have been $51,103,^^ showing a net gain for the Connecticut Prison for this period of $76,956. From 1828 to 1833 Auburn Prison netted over $25,000." ^ It was against such impressive financial arguments that, early in the thirties, those mechanics of the State of New York who were affected by the specific prison industries began vehemently to pro- test. That which a special committee of the Legislature in 1833 called a *' magnificent result that could not have been dreamed of a few years before. ' ' ^^ and as emanating from the exalted spirit of free governments — namely, self-support of prisons through instruction and persuasion of prisoners — the mechanics who were stone-cutters, coopers, or weavers were already condemning as a * tyrannical State monopoly." A factor that made the industrial situation still more intense was the failure of the Sing Sing quarries to produce the anticipated high grade of marble. Moreover, to a Legislative committee in 1832, the ignominy and humiliation attached to teams of convicts, pulling blocks of stones like weary dumb brutes, and harnessed to carts, seemed so great as to demand the installation of other occupa- tions than quarrying. The labor of prisoners should be hired out to contractors, as at Auburn, Charlestown, and Wethersfield. The inspectors at Mount Pleasant Prison had ordered the warden not to make such contracts, because they believed that any profit accru- ing therefrom should go to the State, and not into the pockets of contractors. With this opinion the Legislative committee begged to differ." Even the Reverend Louis Dwight, secretary of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, lent his endorsement to the proposal to let the labor of prisoners out to contractors. On the basis of Wethersfield, said the committee. Mount Pleasant should be netting $70,000 a year! And then the committee of the Legislature made a subtle suggestion. Whatever profits accrued ought, in order to stifle criticism, to be added to the common school fund — an act that would render in the course of a generation the State prisons a matter of trifling necessity, because of the increased education of the young.^^ The convict-labor storm was gathering rapidly over the prisons. To the Legislature of 1834 came petitions from groups of mechanics in sixteen counties, stating that the labor of the convicts was being sold at reduced prices to the contractors, and was thus, by the " B. p. D. S. Vol 1, p. 550. " B. p. D. S. Vol. 1, p. 808. " B. P. D. S. 1829, p. 255. " Assembly Journal, 1833, 199, p. 7. " Op. Cit., p. 13. "Op. Cit., p. 15. 134 History of American Prisons ability of the contractors thus to undersell in the open market the products of prison labor, affecting injuriously the mechanical industry of the State.^^ A Legislative committee took the matter under consideration. It reported that it was advantageous to the contracor to be able to count upon a dependable number of men. The labor problem ought easily to be self -regulative. The mechanics ought themselves to bid for the contracts ; the State ought to demand high prices for the labor of the convicts. It was hard, anyway, to compete through convict labor with the mechanical industry of the country. The State maintained no monopoly. Convicts were offered to all bid- ders, and sold to the highest bidder. If one bidder was cleverer than the other, that was no cause for complaint. Markets were not overstocked because of the output of prison-made products. An addition of 1,000 convicts a year would produce no permanent effects upon the prices or wages in that market." Moreover, did the mechanics claim that convicts should not be permitted to learn industrial trades in prison, on the ground that after leaving prison such convicts, in their newly-learned trades, might be employed in shops with honest journeymen and appren- tices, whose morals they might corrupt? Did not the mechanics realize that discharged convicts must go somewhere? Must do something? Think of the fine reformative effects of the industrial training within the prison ! There was no monopoly in prison labor, if the different contracts were let to the different persons, who were the highest bidders. There was a sufficient demand for all products represented by prison labor, and the limited output of the prisons could not affect the markets or wages. The State must lessen its public burdens by a wise use of the convict, who was the slave of the State. The Auburn system was now the model of the world, and no change ought to be hazarded. The arguments of the Legislative committee contained certain fallacies which the mechanics were not slow in replying to. The contract labor question would not down, by the simple application of a Legislative report. The Assembly appointed a ''select com- mittee," which reported in 1834 that the mechanics had charged fraud and favoritism in the letting of contracts. Convicts, said the mechanics, should not be so employed that the products of their labor would bear heavily on any special trade. They were confined in prison for the benefit of all the citizens, and so they should be supported by the means of all. In this argument the mechanics were working toward the oft-proved fact, in later days, that although the sum total of prison labor is but an infinitesimal part of the total labor forces of the country, nevertheless, when convict labor is applied mainly to specific and relatively few trades, it does produce a material effect upon those trades, lowering the prices and affecting the number of workers in free labor that can find work in such trades. In short, although 1,000 convicts, work- ing in a State where 500,000 other persons may be working, is a " Senate Document, 1834, 14, p. 1. "Op. Cit., p. 3. History of American Prisons 135 negligible number, 1,000 convicts working at a trade at which only 2,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 persons are working on the outside may condition to a preponderating degree the market and the prices of the trade in question. Moreover, the mechanics in 1834 assailed bitterly the theory of the reformation of convicts. They maintained that every indul- gence to a convict beyond a mere wholesome supply of his natural wants was detracting by just so much from the efficiency of his punishment.^* The supposed feeling of humanity had degenerated into a morbid sensibility that would consult the interest and well- being of the criminal at the expense of the community, against whose rights he had offended. The mechanics continued their argument by asking that the effect be considered that the example of punishment under such an attitude of mind would have on society. The convict gets the idea that there is public sympathy for him outside the walls; he believes himself a martyr, the object of public attention and pity. When he returns to society, he believes himself entitled to all its privileges, fit to associate with respectable citizens, and with no feeling of public infamy or degradation. Then, if society rejects his claim, he reverts to crime. This will be almost inevitable, be- cause no man who has been subjected to infamous punishment as a convict can be expected to become a useful citizen. Therefore, the system is wrong in so far as it is based on the theory of reformation.^^ A second serious objection, said the mechanics, was that honest citizens would not associate with the discharged convict. Men are known by the company they keep. Two hundred rogues a year would be going into the trades. Rogues draw honest men down to their standards. The great majority of discharged convicts were under thirty years of age. They would accumulate in the mechan- ical trades. They would not leave the State for greater opportuni- ties, because other States would be adopting the system of New York. The influx of discharged convicts into the mechanical trades would cause the journeymen in these trades to be regarded with suspicion. People would fear to have discharged convicts in their vicinity. Masters would, unaware, be taking discharged convicts into their own homes, among their own wives and daughters. Other journeymen would be quitting the employer who hired a discharged convict. Robbers, ravishers, false swearers and thieves ought not to be benefited to the injury of those honest persons who had a claim on the laws for protection. Rogues are no legitimate part of the community. Moreover, the prisons, in meeting their expenses by contract labor, taxed the labor and industry of the mechanics, and exempted other classes from contribution, argued the mechanics. It would be more just to punish the convict by idleness, or by unproductive labor, and maintain them by general taxation. The State sold their labor cheaply; the contractors thereby manufactured cheaply and ^8 Assembly Document, 1834, 353, p. 3. ^"Assembly Document, 1834, 353, p. F 136 History of American Prisons undersold the honest mechanic. The contractor would practically monopolize any particular branch, by throwing an oversupply into the market, which act would crowd out all except those with much capital. f From the standpoint to-day, the arguments of the mechanics, I from their own personal standpoint, will be conceded to be cogent. 1 The ' ' reformed ' ' convict does go back into society. He does mingle I with the ''honest" workmen. At that time, before the organized labor union methods of identification, it was hard to tell whether the journeyman might be a convict or not. The released convict did compete with free labor. In the prison, as we have already said, a relatively slight output in a few industries would disturb the price equilibrium of that industry. The choice of a few industries for convict labor purposes did unduly compete with outside pro- duction, and other industries went scot-free of such competition. The mechanics certainly had a grievance. But, on the other hand, the State did not, of course, want to give up a thing that was working so well from the administrative stand- point. So we feel in the reply of the Legislative committee a distinct side-stepping and an ignoring of uncomfortable truths. The committee maintained that the direct effect of competition was not so great as had been stated. It was said by the committee to be a mere trifle in proportion to the whole manufacturing industry — which was true, but did not meet the point of the special competi- tion alleged by the mechanics. The committee said that, moreover, if labor was thus obtained at low rates, and mechanics were thereby forced to work more cheaply, the community in general would be benefited in securing both labor and products more cheaply — another fallacious economic doctrine. Nevertheless, the committee stated that it felt the justice of much of the mechanics ' criticism — a feeling accelerated no doubt by upwards of 200,000 signatures attached to the memorials of protest. Some modification of the system was advisable, no doubt, -.^he most important objection was the teaching of mechanical trades to the convicts. Certain branches of trade ought to be designated that would not come into competition with trades followed in the United States — trades in which the mechanics of other States or of foreign countries sent large quantities of manufactured articles into the State of New York. Furthermore, the convicts might be employed on roads and other public works, in the stone quarries at Sing Sing, and in preparing stone for public buildings and works. The committee went on to report that there was the possibility of the transportation of convicts to some region remote from civilized settlements. Further suggestions were that those convicted for a term less than three years might serve their sentence in county jails, and that infamous corporal punishment might for certain offenses be inflicted instead of imprisonment. The appointment of three commissioners was recommended, with authority to remedy the evils and to report to the next Legislature, that of 1835, a plan of State prison industries, and use of labor. History of American Prisons 137 We can readily picture to ourselves the keen interest with which the makers of those 200,000 signatures upon the petitions of mechanics against convict labor awaited the report of the Legisla- tive committee, which report appeared in 1835,^" and found that in some articles, and to some extent, the complaints of the mechanics were well grounded, and ought to be relieved. That the trade was degraded by the entrance therein of convicts the commission would not admit, but it did hold that the mechanics were thereby exposed and should be protected. The crux of the problem was, obviously, the question of finding some proper and satisfactory employment for the convicts. What could they do, with the least competition with the petitioners ? The bodily health and the sanity of the convicts required work. Labor was salutary, and diminished crime. Idleness and the association of convicts with each other was absolutely inadmissible, and would always lead to depravity and vice. Solitary confinement without labor had been proved impossible, both at Auburn and Philadelphia. Transportation was an expensive failure. Banishment meant turn- ing prisoners loose on other States, which would, of course, retaliate. Employment of convicts on public works was no solution, for citi- zens (mechanics) were employed thereon as well as in mechanical pursuits. The work was, moreover, temporary. To the commissioners the solution lay in placing limits on the number of convicts employed in any one prison industry. Convicts should be mainly employed in those branches supplied chiefly by importation from foreign countries. Publicity should be given to the time and place of letting contracts. To search out new trades, the commission might even send an agent to Europe. Such trades being once established, the commission believed the convicts on discharge would no longer seek employment in shops of citizen mechanics. Convicts having no regular calling should be taught an occupation in which they could start, on a small scale, when they emerged from prison. The manufacture of silk was urged as a novel and profitable industry. It is not hard to see that the commissioners made a poor figure both in their report and in their recommendations. Intentionally or not, they failed to weigh justly the obvious grievances of the mechanics, who were getting more and more pinched by the com- petition of the prisons. More petitions had been presented to the Legislature on the subject of contract labor than had ever before been presented on any subject.^^ ^o doubt, the Senator and the Assemblyman of that day lived politically with his ear as close to the ground as at present. And he heard about a public conven- tion of mechanics, attended by 99 delegates from sixteen counties, held at Utica on August 20-21, 1834, to protest against the *'war of the State upon the property and the rights of the honest and industrious mechanics, ' ' as the Geneva mechanics put it.^^ Auburn ^ Assembly Document, 1835, p. 135. 21 Assembly Document, 1840, 276, p. 5. 22 Assembly Document, 1834, 352. 138 History of American Prisons mechanics inveighed against the favoritism manifest in letting and reletting the contracts of the prison. Albany mechanics showed that 100 dozen large combs, that cost $58 to make in Albany, cost only $15.50 in the prisons. The New York city coopers represented that nearly as many coopers were employed at Mount Pleasant as in New York itself. More and more it seemed apparent that the mechanics had the facts, and the commissions of the Legislature had the defensive theories. ** Would men of wealth (asked the mechanics' convention ),^^ like to have Ihe ex-convict, on his return to society, mingle in the drawing room with their sons, and their daughters? And perchance improve his condition by marriage with an heiress of their fortunes? Would the lawyer, the divine, the merchant, desire this close association that would be forced upon the lionest mechanic? An affirmative answer to such questions would be revolting to the moral sense of the community. ' ' ^ And so the convention resolved that, should their petitions fail, they would cause the ballot boxes to speak a language that would not be misunderstood. They would form associations in each county, and also hold annual meetings of protest and propaganda. The ''Mechanics' Magazine," a trade journal, pledged itself never to abandon the cause of doing away with the State prison monoply. One hundred thousand copies of the proceedings of the convention were printed.^'* So strong was the pressure on the Legislature of 1835 that a law was enacted which promised material alleviation to the mechanics, and which we summarize: No mechanical trade should hereafter be taught to convicts, except for the making of articles chiefly imported from abroad. Artisans might be vemployed from abroad as teachers. No contract for a longer period than six months should be made by the warden, without the consent of the prison inspectors. Due public notice should be given of contracts soon to be let. No contracts should be made for a period of more than five years. In branches of industry supplied chiefly by domestic labor (as contrasted with foreign products) the number of convicts to be employed should be limited to the number of convicts who had learned a trade before coming to the prison. Existing contracts should be fulfilled, but contractors should be urged, if possible, to abandon them. The silk industry (growing and weaving) should be introduced. We have italicized the words in the third paragraph above: *'who had learned a trade before coming to the prison," because this clause proved in practice to be a peculiarly useful and bare- faced ''joker" for the prison authorities during the next half decade. While the intent of the law was probably to limit the number of convicts in any trade in prison only to those who already had practiced that trade, the wardens of Auburn and Sing Sing prisons read the law literally, and turned into trades all those who claimed to have followed any tr ade before coming to prison. 28 Proceedings of the State Convention of Mechanics, 1834, p. 6. 24 Assembly Document. 1840, 276, p. 6. . „ ^ , , ,, , ^ 25 State Convention of Mechanics. New York Mechanics' Magazine, p. 6. History of American Prisons 139 The silk industry never proved popular or feasible. A few mul- berry trees were planted, but the prison industries went diligently on. The wardens were unable to persuade the contractors to give up their lucrative contracts. Warden Levi Lewis of Auburn felt a great pity for the contractors, who had gone into the business with, reluctance, as an experiment, and had taught the business to the convicts.^^ Why should the contractors now suffer unfairly and unjustly through general public letting of contracts? Moreover, while such competition might bring higher bids, the warden also worried lest some contractors might bid more than they could afford, thus bringing on a subsequent failure. If such contractors were prosecuted, they would appeal to the sympathy of the Legislature- Any litigation in such an event would seriously demoralize the steady industrial activity of the inmates. On their part, the mechanics had not come forward with any clear-cut proposals as to substitutes for the present system.^^ They knew that they were detrimentally affected by the system, but they could not bring forward any counter-proposals that would match up in attractiveness to the present conditions of industrial activity within the prisons. They talked vaguely about solitary confinement without labor, or transportation, both manifestly impossible, and both involving the expenditure by the State of considetable sums without any economic return. Furthermore, both transportation and imprisonment without labor had an unsavory history that could be adduced against them. The petitioners should remember, said one committee of the Legislature, that while they, the mechan- ics in certain trades were complaining, most of the citizens were not at all worried about the situation. So the arguments were tossed heatedly back and forth. Stress continued to be laid by the mechanics on the inadequacy of the prison punishments. A legislator, friendly to the cause of the mechanics, stated in a minority report in 1835 that a detention in prison was hardly dreaded any longer, and that there were many honest mechanics who would be willing to exchange positions with the convicts. We might parenthetically remark that the same argument has been one of the stock phrases of those who in these more modern times find fault with lenient and so-called progressive prison admin- istration, but we have yet to find any earnest effort of the so-called honest workman to make his way into prison. Many a workman who has suddenly been discovered to be dishonest has found his way there, but the universal experience has been that he desires ta have his prison term cut just as short as possible. The minority njember whom we have mentioned above had to suggest, however, as substitutes for the obviously lucrative contract system only the theoretical proposition of transportation to some remote part of the world, or the discredited solitary confinement 2« Assembly Document, 1835, 135, pp. 27-28. s'Op. Cit., p. 330. 140 History op American Prisons without labor. And so the contract system went on, practically- unimpeded by the new law, and in defiance of the mechanics. Some of the chief contracts in operation were the following : Mt. Pleasant Prison Nature of Contract No. of convicts Date made No. of yrs. of contract Contract price per man per day Copper nail boots and cap fronts Boots and shoes Coopers Locksmiths Saddlery, etc Tailoring Blacksmith and locksmith Hat finishing 50 to 100 80 150 30 40 30 1833 1833 1832 1833 1833 1833 1833 1833 $.35 .35 Piece price Piece price .37>^ ■ SIH .40 .40 Auburn Prison Nature of Contract No. of Date of Duration convicts contract of contract 50 1832 3 45 1829 10 All in that trade 1832 3 85 1827 10 35 1833 6 15 to 25 1833 1 Contract price per man per day Coopering Carpenters' and joiners' tools Boots and shoes Weaving cotton bed ticking . . Tailoring Brass clocks S.28 .30 Piece price .25 or .15 Piece price .20 to .30 For several years, from 1835 until 1840, there was a lull in the controversy. For a time, the new law was apparently given a chance to work. But in March, 1840, there came a strong recru- descence of the mechanics' campaign. A public meeting **in the matter of teaching mechanical trades to State prison convicts ' ' was held in New York city. Again the old and well-grounded argu- ments of opposition were advanced. The bill of 1835, it was claimed, was passed to blind the eyes of the mechanics.^^ The chief aim of the State was to make as much money as possible. All talk of convicts being reformed through learning trades was a pretence. In reality, the system had utterly failed to produce reform. That the arguments of the mechanics were based on sporadic statements of well-known persons, and not on any careful statistical proof, made the facts seem no less strong or convincing to the mechanics. Had the law of 1835 been made a joke? Most decidedly! Did not Mr. Wiltse, the warden of Mount Pleasant, report in 1840 that in the last two years the prison had made $111,773 over all ex- penses ? ' ' A more unequal, unjust and destructive system could not have been devised, nor could more disreputable and dishonest Assembly Document, 1840, 276, p. 6. History of American Prisons 141 means have been construed to perpetuate it," said the mechanics. The meeting again urged solitary confinement, but this time with labor. The Philadelphia system was warmly endorsed. The Auburn and Mount Pleasant prisons should be built over by the labor convicts to provide large cells for solitary labor. Many of the present contracts made since 1835, were probably illegal. The customary senate Legislative committee made its report. The mulberry trees had not flourished and were not favored at Auburn. The committee praised Captain Lynds (who was now for the second time warden of Auburn), and the inspectors for their efficiency in letting contracts on favorable terms, as shown by the following comparative statement: Trades Former rates per day New rates per day Trades Former rates per day New rates per day 36H 32 24 32 18 319-10 37^ 52 32 35 20 35 Shoe 31M 32 7-10 35 30 44 40 TaUor Cabinet 42 Carpet 371^ 371^ 50 Comb Tool..;:::"::: Stone At Mount Pleasant Prison, of 767 convicts, 543 were working in nearly a dozen different contract occupations.^^ Mr. Wiltse frankly acknowledged his interpretation of the law of 1835 to be that he State convention at Albany on September 1st with Assemblyman Weir in the chair. The mechanics still refused to formulate an alternative plan, claiming that that was the Legislature's business. In truth, the mechanics were in difficulty. They could not convinc- ingly argue that industrial education was harmful to the convict; they could not convincingly assert that compulsory and solitary idleness would be beneficial to the convict — and in refusing to offer a substitute plan for the lucrative convict labor system, they clearly side-stepped a responsibility that was at least partly theirs. In short, they wanted all competition abolished, and did not care>^ primarily what happened to the convicts or to the State. So the mechanics had to argue that the convicts should not be taught trades, because the very filling of those trades by discharged convicts would make it harder and harder for them to obtain employment in the said trades.^'^ Stress was laid on the non-reform- ative nature of the present prison system, said to be proved by the fact that one-third of those convicts admitted to the prison had trades. The educated convict was, therefore, more dangerous to society than the untaught convict ! The mechanics ridiculed the ''State Universities of Sing Sing and of Auburn." Had not the alleged reformers, anyway, abandoned the reform principle in abandoning the complete teaching of a trade, and in substituting a single operation for each laboring convict? Again the mechanics threatened to use their votes, representing one-fourth of the total population of the State, to defeat the chief executive and the hostile Legislature. And, in truth, the mechanics had their legislative inning in 1842, for Mr. Weir was in this year appointed the chairman of the Assembly's committee on State prisons. The report of that com- mittee arraigned most unmercifully the contract labor system that had been so laboriously whitewashed by the same committee the year before. The possibility of making the prison an agent of industrial reformation was denied.®® *'To look for a decrease of crime until governments shall cease the system of benefitting the few by the plunder and deprivations of the many is impossible. ' ' High crimes were said by the report to be incited not by the poor but by the rich, the "moneyed rogues." One of the chief 3"^ Proceedings of the State Convention of Mechanics, 1841, p. 8. 88 Assembly Document (1842), 65, p. 3. ^ \ ^ -^ 144 History of American Prisons causes of crime was alleged to be the dishonesty of the banking system, and the explosion of banks from one end of the country to the other. Silence, said this insurgent prison committee, contained no reformative principle; it contributed to discipline, and it swelled the quantity of production to the contractor. Reformation must take place not inside but outside the prison, through favorable circumstances, steady employment, good wages, and the enjoy- ment, by those who labor, of equal station with respectable men. Teaching trades in prison was like dipping out the ocean with a bucket. Moreover, the committee failed to find that the articles of confederation of the State afforded privileges to criminals ; there was no specification contained therein that they should be instructed in agriculture or the mechanic arts. Criminals had sacrificed all the advantages of citizenship ; they were placed in prison for punishment ; they should be supported not by competing with the honest mechanics, but by a general tax. The agents (wardens) of Mount Pleasant and of Auburn were found by the committee to have broken high-handedly the laws themselves in perpetuating and renewing contracts. But when it came to putting forward a constructive substitute for the existing conditions, the committee, despite its bitter dia- tribe, and despite the general arraignment of the prisons, offered relatively moderate recommendations. Convicts should be em- ployed so far as practicable in the manufacture of articles necessary for their own consumption, and for the inmates of the State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. The quarrying at Mount Pleasant Prison should be carried on more extensively. Silk should continue to be manufactured at Auburn. And the State should, if possible, go into the business of mining and smelting of metal ores. There are two phases of the above-mentioned report that should be noted in their relation to modern prison methods. The commit- tee disparaged the prison as a reformative agent, and by indirection placed the chief field of reformation in society itself. The committee, turning the attention of the Legislature from a consider- ation of prisons to society itself, urged better living conditions, the square deal for labor, and steady employment. There was in the committee's report the suggestion of the palliative results of prison methods. To-day the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is so generally accepted in the correctional treatment of crime and delinquency that it hardly needs to be stressed here. The prison is recognized as the last institution in the series of corrective and reformative efforts of society to deal with the delin- quent. The further back toward childhood and early adolescence one goes to-day in the treatment of delinquency, the more popular, and also the more efficacious, is the treatment. Moreover, it m quite as generally recognized, also, that the general improvement of industrial and social conditions has a fundamental relation to crime and delinquency and that it is far better to improve a com- History of American Prisons 145 munity than it is to improve a prison. But it is also recognized that we still have prisons with us, and that a part of the imprison- ment of industrial and social conditions of society relates specific- ally to the improvement of prisons, for prisons are one of the still necessary institutions of society. The second noteworthy point in the report of the above-mentioned committee was the suggestion that to the largest extent possible the inmates produce the articles that they themselves could con- sume, and that could be consumed by the State Lunatic Asylum at Utica. Herein we find an early suggestion of the prison labor system that later was developed to a greater extent in New York than in any other State, namely, the ** State-Use System,'* the basic principle of which is the prohibition of the sale of prison-made goods in any open market, and, on the other hand, the manufacture by the prisons of goods for the use of the institutions and depart- ments of the State and its political divisions, such as the counties, the cities and the villages. In short, the theory of the State-use system is that there should be, by the prisons, the least possible competition by prison labor with free labor and that therefore no industries should be carried on in the prison for the supplying of the open market in the State in which the prison is located, or any other State. But, since the State seeks thus to minimize any competition of prison labor with free labor, organized labor must recognize on the other hand that the State and its political divisions furnish themselves a market which free labor can supply, but which to the greatest possible extent must in fairness be left for prison labor to supply, since prisoners must labor, for obvious reasons, and there must be somewhere an outlet for their product. The State-use system is not, to-day, a popular system in the States of the Union. Only New York and New Jersey, Ohio and Illinois have adopted the system, wholly or in large part. The system is not yet concomitant with self-support of prisons through the labor of prisoners. New York State has yearly deficits of large amounts for the maintenance of its prisons, and no method by the State-use system has yet been put into practice that has even approached a solution of the problem of maintenance of prisons by the labor of the inmates. On the other hand, there is left, through the State-use system, a considerable part of the day for the academic and vocational education of the inmates, and for their recreation. Turning our attention again to the report of the Assembly committee of 1842, we find in the same Legislature the mechanics winning a partial victory, because a law was passed providing that convicts should work in prison at trades already learned by them — and not at new trades. Any contracts made in violation of the law of 1835 were to be annulled. A commissioner. Ransom Cook, was appointed by this same law to examine lands in relation to possible mining or smelting operations. 146 History of American Prisons In short, out of the agitation of the mechanics throughout a decade, there had come, not the abolition of prison labor, but its restriction, and the movement also to found a new State prison in New York, where mining and smelting should be the chief industry. Within a year, in 1843, the annual earnings of Auburn Prison had fallen off from $57,722 to $49,652. The prison was earning $1,000 a month less than in the previous year. Unless the existing contracts were legalized, an appropriation of approximately $25,000 would have to be asked for, in order to carry out the law of 1842. In 1844 a new State prison was established by law, to be located north of a line drawn east and west of the city of Albany. Only the manufacture of iron should be undertaken in this prison. No contracts should be made by this prison for the labor of prisoners. So far as practicable, the prison should be built by the labor of prisoners. CHAPTER XIII OTHER EARLY PRISONS IN NEW ENGLAND MAINE The State prison of Maine contributed nothing to the early prison movement except a ''horrible example." The prison was estab- lished at Thomaston, 80 miles northeast of Portland, in 1823, three years after Maine had been set apart from Massachusetts as a separate State. Prior to that, convicts from this section of New England had been sent, often at great expense, and with consider- able difficulty of transportation, to the Massachusetts State Prison at Charlestown. The prison at Thomaston was the second in the United States to be built on the Auburn plan. It was located at the side of a supposedly inexhaustible quarry.^ The 48 cells, later increased ta 71, were literally pits, set back to back, designed for solitary confinement. They were but one story high, and sunk below the surface of the ground.^ They had no doors or passageway, and were entered from the top through an aperture two feet square, secured by an iron grating. A more gruesome and unhealthy prison abode could hardly be imagined. By means of a ladder the convicts descended into these ** rooms of indescribable gloom." The ladder was then withdrawn. The cells were 8 feet 9 inches long, 4 feet 6 inches wide, and 9 feet 8 inches high. A small orifice, 8 inches long by 1% inches wide,, built on a slant, admitted air but practically no light. The cells, supposed to be heated from a flue in the floor, were so desperately cold that in the formidable Maine winters not infrequently two prisoners would be placed in a cell together to keep each other warm. In the winter the prisoners had to stay in bed constantly from sunset to sunrise to keep warm, a process vicious and debili- tating to mind and body. There were no lights in the cells.* The governor of Maine, pleading in 1839 for a modern prison building, stated that the then existing prison building at Thomaston seemed to have been constructed with a view of inflicting the greatest punishment in the shortest time and at the least expense. To these terrible cells the courts, from 1823 to 1827, when the law was amended, sentenced convicts with the provision that all or a portion of the sentence should be spent in solitary confinement without labor, and on bread and water. This accumulation of barbarous penalties brought speedily its inevitable horrors. One man, sentenced to 70 days, hung himself after four days; another man, condemned to 60 days, committed suicide after 24 days.^ 1 Crawford. App., p. 88, from whom the details of following description. 27, 2 B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 98. ♦Crawford. ' Crawford, p [147] 148 History of American Prisons Many prisoners had to be repeatedly taken from solitary confine- ment to the hospital in order to be restored to a condition that would permit them to be again returned to the same torture ! The prisoners were placed in their cells one hour before night each week day. They remained in their cells all day on the Sabbath, except, for one and one-half hours.^ Insanity and disease were the inevitable corollaries of this treat- ment, which itseK seems to have been the echo of the campaign in New York and Pennsylvania in the twenties. With the abandon- ment of solitary con&iement in Maine in 1827 ^ under such conditions, it was still reserved for punishment of infractions within the prison. These terrible conditions were used as material by the Boston Prison Discipline Society in its campaigns against solitary confinement without labor. Stone-cutting was the main occupation at this prison. There were also blacksmiths, wagon-makers, joiners, shoemakers, and tailors.® The few women convicts worked in the washhouse under a matron. There was little difficulty in disposing of the manufac- tured articles, which were manufactured and sold by the prison, no contractors being employed. The pits were the worst part of the prison life. The necessity of placing at times two men in a cell broke the rigors of the undi- luted Auburn system. Discipline was consequently lax. Friends might visit the convicts. To this was added the almost inevitably demoralizing feature of those prisons in which salaries were small. There were frequent cases of untrustworthiness of the guards, who, receiving less than $200 a year, were generally unfit to be placed in authority over others. Liquor and cards found their way to the prisoners. The following salaries were paid in 1827 : Warden $700 Chaplain $100 Keeper 200 Inspectors 206 Clerk 200 and $91 to each of the officers for Overseer 180 board."" Physician 100 The prison was a constant expense to the State, although annual financial statements often showed apparent earnings over expenses from the labor of convicts, who received no "overstint" compensa- tion, but only a suit of clothes and from $2 to $5 when discharged. The governor stated in 1837 that the prison had cost the State since 1823 a total of $123,489 (mainly, however, for buildings), in addition to the sums arising from the labor of convicts.^ It is a striking thing that, despite the pits, the health record was regarded as good. The average death rate was not over two per cent. Women and children were not sent to this prison, but to county jails,^ until in 1830 a separate building was built for the women. 3 Crawford. App. B B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 89. 8B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 612. 8 B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 101. »B. P. D. S., 1837, p. 121. 10 B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 98. History of American Prisons 149 After having considered in 1836 the possibility of relocating the State prison at Hallo well, just south of Augusta, the Legislature decided in 1839 on a reconstruction of the prison at Thomaston. The Auburn plan for the prison had been advocated by a legislative commission, in preference to the Pennsylvania plan, on the ground that it was less expensive to build, fully as easy to administer, and, while less expensive to maintain, quite as popular among the authorities on prison discipline, as well as quite reformative! The new prison was to contain 136 cells in a building 140 feet long, 44 feet wide and 25l^ feet high. The prison was built by 1845. The 108 cells, 7 feet by 7 feet by 4 feet, were more than adequate for the population, which had averaged about 80.^^ The new prison cost but $13,177. And in 1845, for the first time, the labor of a portion of the convicts was contracted for shoemaking, at 40 cents a day for trained men, and 30 cents a day for new hands. The prison during the first twenty years of its existence gave some attention to religious instruction, and maintained a Sabbath School. The inspectors of the prison seem to have been highly unsympathetic to any of the efforts at moral and religious instruc- tion. The law required the chaplain to make daily visits to the prison for the purpose of conversing with the convicts; but, reported the inspectors, ' ' the effect of such visits is to afford oppor- tunity for such as are inclined, to spend a part of their time in idleness and deception, while their sentence requires constant labor." The board of inspectors considered it useless to compel the prisoners to attend Sunday School. The prison was reported by Dorothea Dix in 1845 to be deficient in the means of general moral instruction. NEW HAMPSHIRE New Hampshire made a real contribution to prison management and progress in this country. From New Hampshire came the Pilsburys. First, Moses C. Pilsbury, warden from 1818 to 1826 of the State Prison, which had been erected in Concord, the capital of the State, in 1812. The son of Moses Pilsbury was Amos, who became warden of the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield. The son of Amos was Louis, who became in 1877 superintendent of State prisons in New York. Moses Pilsbury, while warden at Concord, New Hampshire, was held in high esteem as an administrator. Always at his post, he was unceasingly vigilant, did the duties of contractor, keeper and clerk, was prompt and efficient when correction was necessary, humane in principle, tender in sickness, without cessation in the instruction of prisoners, and religious in temperament.^^ Moreover, he won special praise for converting the deficit of the prison into a surplus, the institution having earned for the State from $1,000 to $5,000 a year from 1822.^* Moses Pilsbury was the first and earliest " B. p. D. S., 1845, p. 506. i*B. p. D. S., 1826, p. 32. «B. P. D. S., 1826, p. 36. 150 History of American Prisons of the enlightened wardens of what might be called the second period of American prisons, that began roughly with the establish- ment of Auburn Prison in 1816. The prison at Concord was originally of the old Walnut Street type, built in 1812, with large night-rooms, lodging from two to six convicts.^^ The area of the prison was greatly restricted, the enclosing wall being but 260 feet long by 200 deep.^- The prison building was 70 feet long, 36 feet wide, 3 stories high, and contained 36 cells. No quarry or navigable water adjoined the prison. From a quarry two miles distant, rough granite was brought to the prison, which, when prepared for market, was carried to the Merri- mac River, that flowed through Concord, and thence by boat and canal to the Boston market. In the earlier years the chief employment was stone-cutting.^^ The satisfactory discipline of the prison was achieved by Warden Pilsbury through constant vigilance. He was an ardent believer in separate confinement. Plots, he said, were hatched in night-rooms,^^ and he had frequently overhead whole histories of villainy in listening to the conversations of convicts at night.^° Pilsbury con- demned the practice of paying assistant keepers and guards so- little that frequent changes occurred, and that men of proper character were difficult to obtain. Improper familiarity between keepers and convicts inevitably developed.^^ New Hampshire's prison was small, inexpensive and rural. The total salary list in 1826 was but $1,565, of which the warden received $800. The expense for food, clothing and bedding for the same year was only $1,366 for 70 prisoners. The mortality was less than two per cent. Besides the stone-cutting, the prisoners- worked as smiths, coopers, weavers, tailors, painters, and at general work around the yard. Crawford found the prisoners rising at 4 :30 in summer, and working until 7, when they had one hour for breakfast. They then worked until 12, when dinner occurred. They had their meals in their cells. They returned finally to their cells at 7 in the evening. Lights were placed in front of the cells in winter. The daily rations of the prisoners, without variation, were: 14 ounces of salted beef, 11^4 pounds of rye and Indian bread, and a sufficient quantity of potatoes, and porridge or beans or peas for supper.^^ In 1827 Mr. Pilsbury was called to the wardenship of the new Connecticut Prison at Wethersfield, in spite of the bonus of $200^^ which had been for a number of years appropriated him by the New Hampshire Legislature. Successive wardens did not reach his administrative ability, and Crawford found marked laxity in the management. 12 Crawford. App., p. 78. 13 B. P. D. S., 1826, p. 25. i« B. P. D. S., 1826. p. 25. "B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 55. 18 B. P. D. S., 827, p. 143. i» B. P. D. S., 1826, p. 101. 20 Same, p. 25. History of American Prisons 151 The diminishing population of the prison, from 1828 on, was a cause of wonder. A State with nearly 300,000 inhabitants had only 48 convicts in its State prison in 1828. For several years the average was not over 60; less than one-half the number in the Vermont State prison, and about one-third as many as at Wethersfield.-^ Two of the principal causes were said to be the debtor laws and the pauper laws.^^ There were few debtors in the county prisons in training for careers of crime, and the New Hampshire almshouses were not sustained, as in other States, by a heavy State tax for the support of foreign paupers. Moreover, the laws of New Hampshire provided shorter penalties for crimes that elsewhere were visited with severe sentences. The Constitution itself of New Hampshire declared : "A multitude of sanguinary punishments is impolitic and unjust, the true design of all punishments being to reform, and not to exterminate, mankind. ' ' * In 1832 a new cell building of three stories was erected at the prison, on the Auburn plan, with 120 cells, each 6 feet 10 inches long, 3 feet 4 inches wide, and 6 feet 6 inches high.^^ At this period the relaxed discipline was similar to that of the State prison of Maine. The prison population was not considered a vicious one. Crawford found corporal punishment forbidden by the law of the State, and solitary confinement the only severe punishment, up to 30 days. This punishment was not used over once a month. The total population on May 31, 1832, was only 89, and but 14 convicts were admitted, and but 16 discharged during the fiscal year. Their sentences ranged as follows : ^^ Life 5 8 years 3 13 years 1 7 years 11 12 years 2 6 years 8 11 years 1 5 years 32 10 years 7 Under 5 years 19 By far the largest proportion of the 407 admitted since the open- ing of the prison in 1812 had been convicted of stealing. The chief offenses were: Stealing 248 Forgery 22 Horse stealing 46 Making counterfeit notes or Passing counterfeit money 23 money 10 Only two persons had been executed in 25 years. There had been since the opening of the prison but 7 persons committed for manslaughter. The population had been almost entirely American- born, 371 out of 407, England furnishing 11 and Ireland 16. Of the 407, 220 had been between 20 and 30 years of age, and 56 under 20. About 25 per cent, of the prisoners had been discharged by pardon. At the time of Crawford 's visit there was only one woman prisoner.^^ »B. p. D. S., 1831, p. 436. « Crawford. App., p. 78. 2» Crawford, p. 80. "B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 436. » Bradford Enquiry, p. 6. «• Crawford, p. 81ff. 152 History of American Prisons By 1835 it was announced that, except for a few years, the prison, had been a heavy burden to the State. Since, therefore, it was likely to continue to be so in the future, the board of inspectors contracted for the labor of the prisoners in such a manner as if possible to meet all expenses.^^ The contractors were to pay all the expenses of the prison, including the salary of the officers. The then warden denounced this proposition, because of the inevitable clash of the interests of the prison and of the contractors.^® In 1837 the affairs of the prison were unsatisfactory, and there was much complaint in the public press. The next year the earn- ings did not meet the expenses. The ' ' elder Pilsbury, ' ' Moses, was called back to the wardenship. He designated the contract system as the worst of all systems, destroying all the good contemplated by the friends of prison disciplined^ In 1840 Pilsbury requested the Legislature not to consider him again a candidate for the wardenship. He said:^ * * The contract system cuts off all hope of the reformation of the prisoner. ' ' There was a single contractor now, who received all the earnings, and supported the institution.^^ Moral instruction was given, at this period, to the prisoners by a chaplain appointed by law, who also taught the prisoners. There was a small prison library. Citizens were admitted to the Sunday services in the prison — an unusual custom. VERMONT Vermont and Maine were States so relatively remote, in the early days of the Republic, from the progressive influences in prison management that it is not surprising that little development of modern methods or constructive principles emanated from their prisons. In 1809 Vermont built its first State prison at Windsor on the west bank of the Connecticut. In a plot 280 feet long and 200 feet deep were the keeper's house and the cellhouse, the latter structure being 84 feet long, 36 feet wide, and containing 35 cells,'^ each of which, according to the then customary plan, was designed to hold from two to six persons.^^ When the Auburn system began to influence New England, Vermont erected in 1831 an additional cellblock, on the Auburn plan, with 136 individual cells, 7 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches wide, and 6 feet 9 inches high, with wooden doors, in which a nine-inch aperture was constructed for the admission of air and light. It can readily be seen that this provision was deplorably insufficient, and must have rendered the cells almost dark, and badly deficient in air. Vermont's early prison history did not affect materially the course of American prison discipline. Representatives of other States seemingly did not visit Vermont, or seek to learn from her. 2« B. p. D. S., 1836 and 1837. 27 B. P. D. S.,1838, p. 219. 2»B. P. D. S., Vol. I, p. 874. 80 Same, Vol. II, p. 445. 81 Same, Vol. II, p. 333. 82 Crawford App. p. 84. 83 Reynolds, p. 10. History of American Prisons 153 Her methods were economical, not to say frugal. The superintend- ent of the prison, who filled the roles of contractor, clerk and agent, received annually but $850; the keepers and guards received an- Jiually only $130, and the physician $100.^^ Crawford, the English •official visitor to our prisons in the thirties, found in 1832 the cells dirty and offensively close — as was natural — and the discipline lax. Corporal punishment by flogging was prohibited by law, the •dark cell and restricted diet being used as severe measures.^^ The prison 's chief industry was weaving. For several years after its establishment, the prison cost the State from $5,000 to $7,000 a year. Then, for a long period, it made both ends meet. Later, in 1838, all labor of convicts was leased to a contractor, who in turn guaranteed to meet all the expenses of the prison. Nevertheless, in 1845 the prison cost $2,000 more than its income. The average number of prisoners during the twenties was approximately 100. Crawford found in 1832 only one woman prisoner in the popula- tion of 119. She sewed constantly. The male convicts worked at ■dyeing yarn, weaving, spinning, tailoring, shoemaking, blacksmith- ing and as wheelwrights. Each convict had a stint to do and received compensation for overwork. Snuff and tobacco were allowed the well-behaved prisoner in moderate quantities. Letters 'Could be sent to and from friends. Visitors were admitted with frequency. The prisoners wore party-colored clothes, half green ^nd half scarlet.^^ We have a variant from the dry official reports of this prison in the shape of a collection of ''Recollections of Windsor Prison,'* by one John Reynolds, a long-time inmate of the prison, who was discharged about 1830, and who gave a vivid and apparently rela- tively dispassionate account of the life in the institution in his time. Reynolds was an educated man, thoughtful, and gifted in expres- sion. It is to be expected that the autobiography of a prison inmate will be colored, and one-sided, but on the other hand, so is the official report. The released inmate seeks ordinarily to produce an account highly colored and spectacular ; the official report seeks to eliminate color, so far as possible, and it seeks the opposite of the spectacular. The inmate's report is a case of special pleading, and often largely a narrative of abuses and injustices ; the official report is a case also of special pleading — to the Legislature, and to the public — and is the opposite of the inmate's report, for it •does not narrate abuses, and portrays no injustices to prisoners, so far as its own deliberate management is concerned. Between the emotional and subjective report of the released inmate and the cold but subjective report of the administrative body of the prison lies frequently the truth. In the case of John Reynolds, we have a man who was sufficiently logical and intellec- tual not to distort and rejoice in unreliability. Plunged into this '2 Crawford. App., p. 84, »* B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 103. 8^ Reynolds, p. 15. 154 History of American Prisons prison maelstrom of human wreckage, the outstanding features of the prison life were to him the State's inhumanity and stupidity, as represented by the acts of officers and keepers. The very prison building was an example. The coldest part of the prison in the winter had not a spark of fire in any of the halls. ''Many a time," he wrote, "have I made large balls by scraping the frost with my hand from the stone sides of my cell ! " ^ In the solitary confinement cells, in winter, the wretched prisoner had to keep walking to keep from freezing to death ! ^^ One small piece of bread, and a pail of water each twenty-four hours were his por- tion ; a single blanket his defense against the bitter Vermont cold. With wholly inadequate nourishment he fought for life by pacing the dark cell. Of a certain young Dean the author tells, who with frozen ears and shivering limbs, exhausted by the very exercise necessary to prevent freezing, was dying in solitary confinement for want of sleep.^ It was a serious problem, not confined to Vermont or Maine alone, that all the American prisons in the northern States faced in the winter time. There was great difficulty in procuring an equal or an adequate amount of heat. Miss Dorothea Dix, writing in 1845, said that she knew of no prison where, as yet, the officers were fully satisfied with the area stoves. Some cells were hot and stifling, some cold and uncomfortable. This narrative of Reynolds teems with graphic and heartrending tales of the extreme sufferings of prisoners. The insane were flogged for feigning insanity. Instruments of torture were: the block and chain, a log of wood, from 30 to 60 pounds in weight, to which a long chain was fastened. The other end was around the prisoner's ankle. He carried it wherever he went. Sometimes he had to wear it for months. Also the iron jacket, a frame of iron that confined the arms "down and back." A person wearing this jacket could not lie down with any comfort. The sick were consid- ered as criminal in their sickness, and many died before they could convince their keepers that they were sick. Sick persons were allowed no food, but a dish of crust coffee and a piece of bread, onc3 in 24 hours. Often they were given an emetic, or blistered. Reynolds wrote that the physicians were in the main honorable men, but were given no authority. Ministers neglected the prison, and men who had been as long as six months in the hospital died without a visit from a clergyman. Twenty years after the founding of the prison, no Bible class or Sunday School had as yet been introduced, for the keepers "had hatred of the holiness and the purity of the Gospel." Ultimately, through the publicity of a letter smuggled out of prison, the needs of the prisoners were made known, and a chaplain appointed. Reynolds held that "you cannot do anything to a prisoner until you convince him of your real friendship for him." 3« Reynolds. Recollection of Windsor Prison, p. 11. ^ Same, p. 36. 38 Same, p. 66. History of American Prisons 155 What was the attitude of the prisoners toward religion and its doctrines ? Those whom Reynolds knew held almost universally to the ' ' endless punishment school. ' ' ^ All were agreed that the means of grace were confined to this life, and that if a man died in sin, his doom in misery was fixed forever. Reynolds found both high motives and appallingly base characters within the same prison group. Though the number of sincere and hopeful Christians was very small, there was not one man among them in whose mind the pulse of virtuous principles was not still beating. It was natural, therefore, that this sensitive and well-educated prisoner, Reynolds, should declaim in utmost bitterness against the keepers. By laws, made for a humane government of the prison, were trampled under foot by every keeper and guard, from the highest to the lowest. The longer a keeper stayed at Windsor, the more brutal he became. ** Hence prisons," said the author, "grow worse as they grow older. They all had their origin in a merciful design . . . they gradually sink down into the gloom of unalleviated despotism,'^ The stripling keeper, at eight dollars a month, imagines himself something and descends to every arbi- trary manner. How can prisoners reform when they see their officers, who are supposed to have special reference to the good and moral reformation of prisoners, act thus? Were the prisoners incapable of being reached through kindness ? It was told by Reynolds, as an example of the generous-heartedness of the inmates, that a woman whose husband was an inmate came with her two children a distance of 300 miles to see him. She had spent her money and had already suffered on the road. As soon as this was known, the prisoners made up a purse of $14 and gave it to her, and also cloth to dress her two children. Husbands and sons, working in prison shops, were particularly careful to keep their earnings, and at convenient times to send them to their parents and families. The author maintained that if any good was to be effected in the reformation of prisoners, they must be treated with kindness and respect. **You may snarl them into sin, and tread them down to hell, but you must love them into repentance, and support them up the ascent to heaven." There was no danger of any prisons, by humane treatment, ever becoming so mild as to be a desirable residence for any one. * ' Take the purest apartment in heaven and confine a seraph there, and the simple fact that he is a prisoner would make his home a hell. The devil himself would prefer liberty, in the world of woe, to imprisonment even in paradise; freedom with damnation, to salvation with restraint. Our prisons are such scenes of cruelty and such schools of crime because Christian churches and Christian individuals are destitute of the practical good- will and the expansive benevolence of the Gospel of Christ." It is impossible not to feel that through Reynolds^ account of life in Windsor Prison we get a lightning flash into basic truths about the prison systems of the time. It is the minimum, in most » Reynolds, p. 111. 156 History of American Prisons instances, that the student can draw from annual reports, and even from Legislative documents, regarding the punishment and cruelty- sides of prison administration. It needs a Reynolds, or an anony- mous writer, fearing for his very safety even after prison, to induct us into the actual horrors of the time. We cannot pass over the statement of Reynolds that imprison- ment itself is the central fact of prison life. ' ' Better freedom with damnation, than salvation with restraint. " ^^ He has thus graphic- ally phrased almost a century before the weaker and more frequent repetition of the same emotion to-day, what is pointed out in the contention of many reformers of to-day that it is not the punish- ments in prison that count most, but the fact of the impossibility of being free and one's own master. Freedom is craved without cessation. It is maintained that the chief punishment is inflicted upon the criminal when he is shut up within prison walls, and that extra punishments are not needed for the prevention of crime, or the reformation of the offender. Reynolds felt bitterly toward the Boston Prison Discipline Society which, by championing the Auburn system, and by con- doning thereby the severe practices of that method, as well aa flogging, seemed to him to torture the prisoner while it could, and then threw him out, unprotected, unhelped, and friendless, on the scorn of mankind, to pursue from necessity his old course, and be sent back again. So, after his discharge from Windsor, Reynolds endeavored to found the "Prison Missionary Society" in New^ England, which *' aimed to treat the prisoner as a human being, and to efifect his reformation by the mild means of the Gospel . . . and to go with him when set free and to prevent him from being compelled to sin again by giving him clothes, money and employment, and elevating him to the dignity of a citizen and the respect of mankind. ' ' *^ However, for lack of financial support the plan of Reynolds fell through, and was soon of necessity abandoned. His motives were such as to-day would have the highest moral support, although it is still a fact that charitable organizations or individuals devoted to the succor of the released prisoner are not among those most readily or spontaneously supported. Moreover, his protests against the Boston Prison Discipline Society were in part well grounded. The Boston organization was a militant society for prison reform, not for the individual succor of released prisoners. We do not find in its records that it functioned as a relief society. There was already great need of the after-care that Reynolds, knowing from personal experience the vital dearth of such effort, urged be given. But he was before his time ! Since his day, many men have come out of prison, to become missionaries in the field of the succor of the convict. « Reynolds, p. 207. *i Sauie, p. 144. History of American Prisons 157 Because of his own experience, and because of what prison did to all inmates, Reynolds inveighed with intensity against the prison system. "Windsor prison is called a penitentiary; as properly might hell be called heaven. The spirit of the penitentiary systems finds no place there to lay its head. Not the reformation of the convict is sought but their warnings; and they are treated just as an intelligent but heartless slaveholder would treat his negroes — made to work as long as they can earn their living, and then cursed with freedom that they may die at their own expense. ' ' ^ *2 Reynolds, p. 130^ Recollections of Windsor Prison : containing Sketches of its History and Discipline ; with Appropriate Strictures, and Moral and Religious Reflections, by John Reynolds, Boston. Published by A. Wright, 1834. CHAPTER XIV THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON 1826-1846 The State prison at Charlestown resembles a great manual labor school," wrote F. C. Gray in 1847 ; ^ ''the shops are not equalled, except in such great establishments as Lowell. ' ^ Looking backward from this prosperous conclusion of the period we are about to consider, we find that ten years before the statement of Gray, in 1837, Governor Everett of Massachusetts had said, at the annual meeting of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston that **this, then, is the glory of the modern prison discipline; an awful waste of life, of human blood, has been prevented; the tortures of the former modes of punishment are disused; the aggravated corruption, which badly managed prisons unavoidably produced, is succeeded by a purifying moral influence, and in numerous well-attested cases, character has been retrieved. ' ' ^ In 1838, the Boston Society stated that it was not aware of any penitentiary that had a better system of moral and religious instruc- tion than the State Prison of Massachusetts.® And it is true that in the years from 1829 on, Massachusetts made an earnest effort to work out, on the basis of the Auburn system, a plan of prison administration that would embody both eifficiency and humanity. Her history during this period is of special interest. It will be remembered that the first twenty years of the Massachusetts State Prison had been years marked with cruelty and demoralization after the earliest years. Now, with the erection of a new prison building in 1829, and the introduction of the Auburn system, a remarkable change for the better quickly followed, and conditions, which at the old prison had demanded marked improvement, or the abandonment of the penitentiary, were now substantially changed. The old conditions had obtained as late as 1827, when a repre- sentative of the Boston Society found forty convicts scattered in different ' * apartments, ' ' without keeper or inspector for the whole. Similar license was tolerated in the hospital. The keeper could not approach the cells at night without the giving of warning by moving heavy doors.* Recidivism was unchecked.^ A typical recidivist was one Henry Wood, from Acton, Massachusetts, who had the following record: Life sentence for burglary. December 11, 1800. Pardoned, November, 1811. Six months' sentence for theft. May, 1812. Discharged, November, 1812. ^ Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 47. 2 B. P. D. S., 1837, p. 177. » B. P. D. S.. 1838. p. 221. * B, P. D. S., 1827, p. 59. « Ibid., p. 60. [1581 History of American Prisons 159 Sentenced to three years for theft, December, 1814. Discharged, December, 1817. Life sentence tor tnert, November, 1818. Discharged, October, 1824. Sentenced to seven years for larceny, May, 1825. Now (1827) at head of cook room, with ten young convicts associated with him at night. A general search of the old prison, in 1825, had disclosed in the prisoners' cells counterfeit bills already altered or in process of alteration ; also between 20 and 30 copper-plate dies, prepared and neatly engraved; also a large iron or steel press.* In short, the manufacture of counterfeit money within the prison! A keeper was detected furnishing, three times in succession, bills to be altered by the prisoners. The counterfeiting of bank bills was a frequent and lucrative crime; the annual report of the Boston Society in 1827 carried a list of 237 counterfeits of bank bills then current in 18 States and Canada. A great variety of skeleton keys had been taken in a similar search of convicts' rooms and persons, under the old regime. The prison was a veritable training school, in depravity. A Boston merchant, Marshall Prince, who had lost the key of his iron private chest, tried in vain among Boston locksmiths to get it open. But when he carried it to the State prison, **it was opened before he had scarcely time to look about him. ' ' ^ Not only did unnatural crime flourish, but the prison was again and again the scene of riots, insurrections and other dangerous manifestations. So terrific were the well-known evils in the prison that in 1828 the Boston Society exclaimed that a *'holy God, for twenty years, has been a witness (to the conditions), and we tremble for ourselves, as citizens of the State, lest we shall be found partakers in the guilt of the existence and unnecessary continuance of such an evil. "8 One of the most disturbing features of the situation was the so-called * * overstint, ' ' or bonus, granted by the contractor for over- time work as a stimulus to convicts. Such overstints totalled about $6,000 a year, and were used by the convicts in ways antagonistic to the efforts of the prison authorities to maintain order, discipline and control. Despite the ruling of the inspectors that the overstint might be used only for the families of prisoners, or be kept until the prisoners ' release, and despite the strict prohibition to sell, bargain, or give any part of the overstint from or to one another, in practice the convicts sometimes even employed it in hiring legal counsel and other persons to obtain pardons for them, and sometimes in employ- ing lawyers to obtain or prevent the passage of criminal or penal laws, which the convicts liked or disliked. On such occasions a purse was made up by the prisoners. Some- times the fund was used to corrupt the small officers of the prison, to obtain indulgences or to effect an escape. The most common use of the overstint was to procure luxuries such as tea, coffee, tobacco, milk, crackers, fresh fish, butter, cheese, cider and apples. These articles materially supplemented the legal dietary of coarse beef «B. p. D. S., 1827, p. 62. ■^ Ibid., p. 63. " B. P. D. S., 1828, p. 157. 160 History of American Prisons or pork, rye and Indian meal, molasses, salt fish and lard,^ and defeated the announced purposes of a monotonous and coarse diet as a punishment and deterrent. Naturally, in such a prison, petty * ' perquisites ' ' flourished among the keepers, who took stores, stock and the labor of convicts in their own departments at very low price. The abuse extended to the taking of leather, iron and the like. Officers had shoes, clothes and farm utensils made up by prisoners out of prison stock for their own use; they had their wood sawed and carted by convicts, and took provisions for themselves and their families. The commissary officer, though paid a set salary, obtained from $400 to $500 a year in addition to his business. An overseer in the stone department received $354 as salary, but made also $3,000, and also had an income from contracts. The lesser officers received five per cent, commission on the proceeds from fees of visitors, and were allowed 150 pounds of pork for tending the swine. These and many other *' emoluments " had been sanctioned by the board of inspectors, but had no legal sanction. The whole situation, in short, was demoralizing, and was heightened by a division of authority be- tween the board of inspectors and the warden, and consequent friction that developed into animosity,^® and that led in 1828 to an administrative organization, whereby the warden became the dominant executive authority. The State was consequently forced into a radical reorganization of the prison. The Prison Discipline Society furnished an archi- tectural plan on the basis of the Auburn structure, and urged the adoption of constant silence and the separation of prisoners at night." The Legislature of 1826 authorized the erection of a building of unhammered stone, for the separate confinement of 300 convicts. In the same year a very constructive law was passed, giving to the city of Boston authority to discontinue sending juvenile delinquents to State prison, and to commit them instead to the House of Correction at South Boston. The new State prison building received the first prisoners in October, 1829. It was 200 feet long, 48 feet wide, with a corridor 9 feet wide (and opened to the ceiling) surrounding the cellblock, which was four tiers high, each tier containing 38 cells, or 304 in all. Each cell was 7 feet long, 7 feet high and 3 feet 6 inches wide. The doors were of wrought iron, with iron gratings in the upper part, fastened by a lever lock. In short, a prison building of the Auburn type.^^ The new prison was a ponderous edifice, and contained about 11,000 tons of granite, 20 tons of cast iron, and 45 tons of wrought iron. Opposite each cell, in the outer wall, nine feet away, was a little window, similar to the small windows at Sing Sing prison, built on the theory of contributing light to the individual cells through the grated doors of the cells. The light must have been deplorably » B. p. D. S., 1828, p. 183. 10 B. P. D. S., 1828. p. 183. 11 B. P. D. S., 1826, p. 43. "Haynes, p. 48. History of American Prisons 161 scanty, for the Boston Society within a few years began to advocate for American prisons, the insertion of long wide windows into the outside walls of such cell-houses. To-day the long wide windows are a regular part of this type of construction, and the light of the sun floods into the corridors of the cellblock. The new prison, including a chapel for 320 convicts and kitchen, cost about $86,000.^^ The size of the prison yard at this time was 500 by 240 feet. The State had bought five acres outside the walls for a wharf and a garden.^* The revolution in prison discipline thus brought about came without riots or bloodshed. By 1831, there was high praise for the prison in Governor Lincoln's message to the Legislature. Con- victs were now separated at night, and there was silence, order, industry, respectful and cheerful obedience, harmony, mildness and authority among the officers.^^ The official and Legislative reports for the next decade and a half bring records of almost uninter- rupted administrative serenity at the prison, and of a gradual socialization in the mental attitude of warden, chaplain and physician. Corporal punishment was employed with relative infre- quency at the prison. In the six years from 1829 to 1834, the official statements showed a yearly average of 64 different persons thus punished, out of an average population of 260 persons, with a total average of 451 blows.^® Following the introduction of the Auburn system, there was for some years a notable decrease both in commitments and recommit- ments, a phenomenon occurring also under similar conditions in other States, and seeming to show the deterrent influence, although only for a few years, of a new and rigorous penal system. In 1816, 1817, and 1818, when the old prison was operating, the yearly commitments had been between 130 and 165. But in 1831, with the Auburn system in operation, there were but 71 commitments, a smaller number than, with one exception, had occurred in any year from 1807 to 1827.^^ Through the period that we are now considering, the moral and religious instruction at the prison was a prominent feature. The Reverend Jared Curtis, who had been *4oaned" in the early twenties to Auburn Prison by the Boston Society as chaplain, returned to New England to become the resident chaplain at Charlestown. In 1829 a Sabbath School was organized, teaching not only the Bible but the three R's. We shall see how out of the use of the Sunday School and of the chaplain there developed not alone at the Massachusetts prison, but elsewhere the simpler and more elementary conceptions of the social treatment, so to speak, of the inmates. The chaplains teach not only the Sunday lesson, but the A. B. C 's and some arithmetic and penmanship. The idea of a secular school gradually evolves. In time we shall find in this same prison the idea of a gathering of the men, to be instructed in ethical 1* Haynes, p. 51. " Laws of Commonwealth, etc.. 1829. « B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 449. " Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 200. "B. P. D. S., 1832, p. 557. 6 162 History of American Prisons subjects apart from the Sunday lesson or sermon. As the concep- tion grows of the convicts' similarity to other men, instead of the dissimilarity, the sense of obligation increases on the part of the State to give to the convict what he had lacked on the outside, culminating in the seventies in the elaborate reformatory system that had its origin at Elmira. At Massachusetts, by the end of the third decade of the nine- teenth century, a morning and evening daily assembly in the chapel had been instituted, with prayer and the reading of the scriptures. A definite chapel was built as a part of the new prison, wherein on the Sabbath about 50 young convicts were instructed. By 1831, from 130 to 140 residents of Charlestown, of different religious denominations, had been found willing to engage alternately, from ten to twenty at a time, as teachers in the prison Sunday School." A general public interest was being aroused. On Saturday afternoon, the convicts who sang well were gath- ered for practice, preparatory to the divine service on Sunday.^" De Metz and Blouet found, in connection with the Massachusetts prison, that it was very hard to get suitable Sunday School teachers, who would limit themselves to a discussion of the lesson. They were inclined to talk on foreign matters, and they caused conse- quent confusion among the prisoners. The Wethersfield Sunday School had to be closed on this account .^^ We find, in 1832, the chaplain issuing in the annual report of the board of inspectors some social statistics regarding the prison- ers. This is noteworthy, not because of the intrinsic value of the collated facts, but because they are published facts, gathered with the evident design of knowing more about the men in prison. The prison is emerging from the period when the inmates were treated as so many human beings consigned to oblivion and requiring no study. It is an effort, in a simple way, to understand the problem of the inmate. It is the birth, in Massachusetts, of the statistical method, applied to prisoners with the sanction of the board of inspectors, and the warden. The chaplain had examined verbally 256 inmates. Of his figures we reprint the following : ^^ Total examined 256 Of these, colored, including Indians 48 Born outside the United States - 48 Did not know alphabet when they came to prison 20 Could read only in easy lessons for children 21 Could not write ^4 Accustomed to ardent spirits before 16 years of age 127 Intemperance led to crime 156 Intemperate habits when admitted to prison 167 One or both parents intemperate 50 Guilty of theft before 16 years old 45 Brought up without regular trade or employment 82 Left parents without consent before age of 21 68 Lived in habitual neglect of the Sabbath 182 18 B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 451. i»Same, p. 543. 20 Laws of the Commonwealth, 1829. 21 De Metz and Blouet, p. 22. History op American Prisons 163 The statistical methods of Curtis were primitive, and his goal in the publication of the figures very obvious. He took his facts in large part undoubtedly from the lips of the inmates, a poor statistical method when accuracy is required. He probably colored the reports of the inmates with his own strong bent of mind. More- over, he was obviously convinced that the youth who lived in habitual neglect of the Sabbath, was idle, ran away from home without his parents' consent, and stole before he was sixteen, and drank, would get into State prison. It is no disparagement to his figures that we surmise his strong propensities to prove a point. Much later than Curtis have we found figures equally general and perhaps equally ** predisposed." In 1833, the Sunday School had developed an attendance of about 150, the warden and the deputy warden attending alternately, and the chaplain acting as superintendent. The prison report of this year asserted that several discharged prisoners had reformed during the last three or four years, and a large number had become industrious and worthy men.^ It would seem that ''reformation'' meant in the period under discussion a religious conversion, and that those who had become industrious and worthy alone had not been considered ** reformed." The presence of insane persons in the convict population was not only disturbing to the discipline, but was a piteous spectacle. In the absence of a State asylum for the insane, the courts were forced to commit the criminal ''lunatics" to prison, or to the county jails and houses of correction. Emphatic agitation by Governor Lincoln led in 1830 to the establishment of the State Lunatic Asylum at Worcester. The horrible condition of the miserable and ignored insane in the county prisons of Massachusetts was almost beyond belief. Of the first 164 individuals transferred to Worcester, considerably more than half came from the jails and houses of correction, and about one-third of the whole number had suffered jail confinement for periods of from ten to thirty-two years.^^ Strangely enough, the law of 1830 permitting the transfer of the insane, though applying to county and local prisons, did not extend to the State prison. Warden, physician and chaplain urged the extension of the law to permit the removal of idiots and lunatics from the State prison : "The prison afifords no means of relieving these unhappy prisoners. They cannot be safely employed in labor, and they are not subjects of discipline, so they are necessarily confined in solitude, aggravating the disease. In this prison the insane are forgotten by the public, and sequestered from the hu- manity of their friends and kindred, and doomed to spend years in hopeless misery. ' ' ^ In 1844 the board of inspectors announced that a penitentiary was doubtless a very fit place to punish crime, but not to cure a malady of body or mind.^* In the same year an act was at last passed by the Legislature permitting the transfer of insane convicts to Worcester. This was a merciful provision. Insane prisoners, in 2»B. p. D. S., 1833, p. 628. 2» Senate Document 17, 1843. " Senate Document 5, 1844. 26 Senate Document 10, 1834. 164 History of American Prisons an institution operating on the contract plan, were apt to be regarded as simulating insanity in order to avoid the strenuous labor of the shops. Appalling testimony of the flogging of insane persons came frequently to light in the official investigations of prisons administered on the Auburn plan, in Massachusetts among other States. Dorothea Dix cited an instance — typical undoubt- edly of many similar instances — but without naming the institu- tion, in which a prisoner who declared himself unable to work was repeatedly flogged, as the rules of the prison required. Ultimately the shrieks and tortures of the wretched man compelled the guards to suspend the floggings. He was subsequently found to be insane and was removed to an asylum.^® The above efforts of Massachusetts to eliminate one class of inmates — the mentally unbalanced — from the prison population is of especial interest at the present day, because of the introduc- tion, mainly within the last decade, of the intensive studies of the psychologist and the psychiatrist into penal institutions. The most obvious forms of insanity were recognized eighty years ago in the Massachusetts prison. But the subtler forms of mental irresponsi- bility are but now being brought to light, and to-day it is generally held among the scientific colleagues of the warden — the psycholo- gist and the psychiatrist, and also the prison physician — that there are three or four well-marked classes of mental cases in the prison population, each of which needs to be carefully studied to determine the degree of responsibility, and also the best disposition of the case. In addition, therefore, to the clearly insane, the prison of to-day shows the presence of a considerable number of feeble-minded persons, some of whom are so distinctly non-improvable as to war- rant their removal to asylums for the feebleminded, and their treatment wholly from the standpoint of their mental condition. In addition, the prison contains a third group, the so-called psycho- pathies, those who are eccentric, odd, ''cranky," *' nutty," and in general so constituted that they cannot long conform to the routine of prison life, but become again and again the * ' bad actors ' ' of the prison population. They cannot generally be adjudged insane, and therefore are not subject to removal to a hospital for the insane. They remain in the prison population, and are intermittent disturb- ers of the prison discipline and daily life. The solution for this class will be probably found in their segregation in a separate part of the prison, or in a separate prison. The feebleminded of cus- todial condition will be also segregated, as in the case of the recently established institution in New York State, at Napanoch, where a former reformatory has been converted by law into an institution for the care of the delinquent feebleminded. The determination of mental states is a scientific and complicated process, beyond the elementary tests that determine the most obvi- ous cases of insanity or feeblemindedness. Therefore, it can be readily seen that Massachusetts in the early forties of the last 2«Dix. Remarks, p. 41. History of American Prisons 165 century was undoubtedly segregating only the most obvious cases of insanity, and that many a case that should have been treated wholly from the standpoint of mental conditions remained in the prison to be dealt with as responsible. The State Prison authorities in Massachusetts were concerned far more than were those of other States about the lot of the dis- charged prisoner. While New York and Philadelphia were heat- edly controversial regarding the relative value of the two State prison systems they were developing — while New York was engaged in a constant economic battle with the ' ' mechanics ' ' in the matter of prison labor, and was exploiting the prisoner for the sake of the balance sheet, and while Philadelphia was keeping the in- mate of the Eastern Penitentiary absolutely secluded from the approach of any other inmate, the Massachusetts authorities were acquiring the social sense prison administration. They were seeing that the discharged prisoner was a problem as serious as — and perhaps a more serious problem than — the inmate who came to the prison for the first time. The glaring folly of turning a released prisoner loose without help or funds — except for the trivial few dollars that were customary — and expect him in some way or other, to become honest and God-fearing and to refrain henceforth from crime, was beginning to sink into the official minds of Massa- chusetts. Something had to be done for the "man coming out.'' We saw, in our study of the Vermont prison, how a single ex-convict, Reynolds, sought to make Vermont understand the point and failed. Massachusetts ultimately did better. As early as 1816 a committee of the Legislature had recom- mended that a wooden building should be erected outside the walls of the State prison as a ''home" for discharged prisoners. The Legislature took no action, and the project died. Again, in 1829, the question was raised in the Legislature, and the board of inspec- tors were asked to give their opinion as to the feasibility of such an asylum for the employment of discharged prisoners, with wages in proportion to earnings, until the discharged man should find other honest employment, thus giving an opportunity to those sincerely desirous of reforming. By a curious process of reasoning, the inspectors advised em- phatically against the project.^'^ In the first place, it hadn't been done anywhere else. They conceded that it was harder for discharged inmates to find work than for anyone else, and they stated that the extent of the mischief caused by the inability of discharged prisoners to secure employment could not be accurately determined. However, there were serious objections to herding discharged prisoners together. Such an asylum would become a school of crime, and a center of criminal associations, where those seeking criminals could always find them. Therefore, such an asylum would simply be what the State prison was before the Auburn system was introduced, a center of pro- miscuous and debauching association. But if the asylum should 27 Senate Document 2, 1830. 166 History of American Prisons be conducted on the Auburn plan, with solitary confinement at night, and vigilant inspection by day, to limit and prevent corrup- tion, then it would be exceedingly doubtful if any convict would voluntarily enter such an establishment. So the inspectors, having reasoned clear around the circle, suggested the greater feasibility of allowing prisoners to remain in the State Prison itself for a time after discharge, at a fixed stipend, because the inspectors saw no difference between the State Prison, as conducted, and the kind of an asylum that their own imaginations had developed. We find no record that this proposed asylum was established, beyond the statement of Francis C. Gray,^^ probably referring to this movement, that the plan was put on trial and was abandoned after a few years. Despite his statement, we are led to believe that he was in error, for even the reports of the Prison Discipline Society bring no mention of the undertaking, which would have been the first of its kind in this country of which we have learned. However, by a law of 1845, a new and unusual official effort — which still exists in 1921 — was made by Massachusetts to render easier the lot of the man leaving prison. A ''State Agent" was appointed **to counsel such discharged prisoners as may seek his aid and take such measures to procure employment for such of them as may desire it, by corre- sponding with persons in agricultural and mechanical pursuits, and with benevolent individuals and associations. " ^ Close on the heels of this entirely new principle of State aid, a voluntary association was formed in Boston, called the ** Boston Society in Aid of Discharged Convicts," which co-operated with the State Agent, and indeed appointed him also the agent of the private society, thus enabling him to fill both the State position and the private position. He visited prisoners prior to their release, found work very successfully for them, secured or supplied board and lodging for them in respectable families until work was secured, and in general created in the American system of prison discipline a new and highly important branch. It was even in the previous year, 1844, that the Prison Association of New York was founded, which also established immediately as a part of its work the relief of discharged prisoners. Therefore, in these two leading States, at this date, a new and vitally important work was officially taken up by two new organizations and an official agent of the State in the case of Massachusetts. The responsibility of society for the assistance of the inmate subsequent to his prison term was at last recognized officially, by both the State and the community. Gray cited one respectable cabinet maker who had employed in the last twelve years some fifty discharged prisoners and had never discharged one of them for bad conduct. Only two or three left of their own accord. Shall we not anticipate that in an intellectual center like Boston there should early develop something like a prison library? The 28 Prison Discipline in America, p. 56. 2» Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 57. History of American Prisons 167 enormous amount of time spent by the prisoner by himself in his own cell naturally led to the idea that he should be profitably employed, and since he did not live in association, and had no human companion, the book early suggested itself. Indeed, one complaint against the "over-stint" of the twenties had been that prisoners sometimes used the money for the purchase of ** infidel books. "^^ By the end of the period we are now studying (1845) the prison library was being maintained by an appropriation of $100 a year from the earnings of the convicts, though it was not supported hy the convicts. Books of a religious or moral nature might be taken out and returned by the prisoners weekly. Many of the convicts owned their own books ; just as many of them owned musical instruments, which books and instruments were purchased for them by the warden from their own money. Those who chose, could pass one hour on Saturday afternoon in the chapel in the 'practice of music. The convicts had, in all, about five hours a day for reading and writing in their own cells, including the time allotted to them for their meals.®^ The library had been initiated by a donation of $50, given by the mother of a life prisoner to her son, that he might have proper reading. The books purchased with this sum he used for a while, and then placed them in general circulation, for his fellow-prison- ers. Prisoners added their own books to the library, and a gift of $50 came from a New York friend. The prisoners were furnished from the outside with temperance and religious papers and tracts.^ To-day the prison library is one of the essentials of a well-con- ducted prison. Indeed, the "turn-over" in the books in many a prison exceeds, it is said, the circulation in many a public library. Books are a solace to the prisoner, the extent of which cannot be measured. And we note also in the Massachusetts "program" of the social development of the prison the permission for an hour of instrumental practice on Saturday afternoon. Herein lay the germ of the development of the prison orchestra, which has finally come to pass in many prisons. At the church service on Sunday there was music, both vocal and instrumental. Two other developments, just at the close of this period, dis- tinguish significantly the Massachusetts State Prison as the leader in humanitarian work during this period. There were, when Gray wrote in 1847,^ more than 100 small gardens in the Massachusetts prison yard, each the property of the prisoner who cultivated the few square feet of earth, bounded by refuse boards. Therein the convicts were permitted to grow tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, onions and other vegetables for their own use, and the convicts were even allowed to leave the shops for a few minutes in order to attend to their gardens. Needless to say, they were privileged to eat individually what they raised individually. «>B. p. D. S^ 1829, p. 245. ' 81 Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 53. 82Dix. Remarks, p. 53. ^ Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 51. 168 History of American Prisons All this was a breaking down of the original severities of the Auburn system. Where so many possible contacts of the prisoners with each other existed, there could not fail to be association. Indeed, in no prison has it ever been possible, apparently, to keep the inmates from communicating to some extent with each other. In the rigid Auburn system, the prisoners nevertheless talked, even though it might be almost literally by ventriloquism. In the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania they conversed through the sewer pipes when the closets were being flushed. Here in Massa- chusetts they evidently gave the prisoners some chance to associate and to exchange ideas, for a huge stride in progressive and humane management was taken by the Massachusetts authorities when they not only allowed gardens, but actually instituted a debating society — around the early forties. In the prison gardens lay the germ of one of the strongest principles of modern penology, namely, the reclamation of the inmate through the creation in him of an abiding interest and pleasure in producing honest values, and in returning to the soil. Nature has an exceptional effect upon many prisoners. Contact with the animals of the farm is a potent, if often temporary, influ- ence for good. The broad fields, the crops, the forestation, the work on the highways, all bring the inmate out into nature, and during the process, it is generally found that disciplinary problems are fewer, and that the prisoner's own character is strengthened in responsibility and in his relations to his fellows. Throughout the entire period that we have been considering, from 1776 on, the latent forces within the prisoner have almost uniformly failed to be understood. He has been tortured, disciplined, driven to work, condemned to silence, forced into a regime where a year was but a succession of uniformly monotonous days, deprived of friends, and stripped of hope. An outcast in prison, he has emerged from prison into a state of at least partial outlawry and almost total ostracism, deprived of citizenship and shunned of honest men. He has been driven to work, and commanded in every detail of his prison life. He has been required to be the passive agent of the State, and that prison has been best disciplined where the prisoner has received orders and has obeyed them implicitly. The keystone of the Auburn system has been seen to be silence and obedience, under almost certain infliction of grievous punishment in case of disobedience. The system itself has been proved to be the antidote to the kind of lewd and vicious self-expression among the inmates that flourished in the old promiscuous prisons. In 1843, the warden suggested, and the inspectors approved of the proposition, that as an encouragement to the prisoners, he be allowed to give, with the approval of the inspectors, one or two days in each month off the sentence, in case of good conduct. We do not find that this was carried out.^^ If we ask ourselves why it was not obvious to the early adminis- trators that rewards were the most effective methods of se curing 85 Senate Document 17. 1843. History of American Prisons 169 diligence in work and readiness to obey, we have to note that even Dorothea Dix wrote, in 1845, that **some persons advocate the system of rewards in prison for a term of good conduct or for special diligence. Any supposed advantage from this plan would be overbalanced by increased difficulties of discipline. Jealousies and quarrels would arise; the judgment of the ward-officer would be at fault, and insubordination would follow. Complex rules, like complex machinery, are often out of order. ' ' ** The quotation is interesting, because it acknowledges that the administrative equipment of the prison was not such as to be relied upon for the exercise of fair and careful judgment. The "honor system," even in primitive form, could not as yet be set up, because the honor system depends upon fairness of judgment in the subor- dinate officials of a prison. The statement of Dorothea Dix was not that the inmates could not be dealt with as individuals, but that the prison was not equipped with officers to perform that task. Furthermore, there was the assumption that unless all inmates were treated alike, there would be grievous disciplinary troubles. The whole reformatory system, introduced with the establishment of Elmira Reformatory in the seventies, was the direct protest against the theory of the mass-treament of the individuals that make up the prison population. One of the fundamental distinctions be- tween the State prisons and the reformatories, for years, was that the prison was the seat of mass-treatment of inmates, and the reformatories the seat of a progressively intelligent treatment of the individual prisoner. In 1843, Warden Lincoln, who for eleven years had managed most acceptably the prison, was assassinated by an insane convict. His place was filled by Chas. Robinson, promoted from deputy- warden. It was under this latter warden that certain humanities of prison life began to flourish. Robinson wrote, in his first report : **I have long looked upon a man as a man, whether he be the occupant of a palace or a prison. The more he has erred or strayed, the more he is to be pitied. ... If I have erred at all, I should prefer to err on the side of kindness, clemency and humanity. . . . With the exception of three cases, the government of the prison has been administered without corporal punishment. The shower bath (installed a few years before) has not been used. . . . There is no sane convict that cannot be reached by sincere and persevering affection. Men may be governed by severity, but not reformed. ... It requires more time to govern by appeal to the affection, to reason and to conscience.''^® • It was not surprising that in accordance with this remarkably modern attitude, there should have developed another innovation in American prison life — a society among the convicts for moral improvement and for mutual aid. The warden was president of the society, and any convict might belong to it by giving a formal promise to lead an orderly and virtuous life, and by taking in addition a pledge of total abstinence from liquor. The society met once a fortnight and some previously determined question »*Dix. Remarks, p. 12. ^ Senate Document 5, 1844. 170 History of American Prisons was discussed at each meeting. A committee of the conference was appointed to promote the objects of the society, the said committee consisting of the warden, chaplain (who was vice-presi- dent), the clerk (who was secretary) and six convicts, who were chosen by a majority of the members, and approved by the warden as president. About three-fourths of the total population of the convicts belonged to the society, which was founded because the convict was seen to be much like other persons, and not an incarnate demon. Said Gray, in 1847:^ "All such intercourse among them as does not tend to corrupt them, to produce disorder, or to interrupt their labor — if in the presence of an officer — is humanizing and beneficial. If people say this is not the Auburn system, then let us call it the 'John Howard system.' We've come back to him!" It certainly was not the Auburn system. It was penological heresy of the most insurgent sort. This Massachusetts system admitted through the *' Society for Improvement and Mutual Aid'^ the convict to a place, however slight, in the administration of the institution, for it gave him a chance to express an opinion, before the prison community, on moral and ethical questions, whereby, at least indirectly, the ethical standards of the institutions them- selves would be affected. It gave the convict, moreover, a sense of being a member of a community, a fellow-being not only with his convict associates, but with the officers themselves. It made the prison no longer simply a walled enclosure, within which certain desperate humans endured a wholly unnatural and non-social existence. This society restored to him the power and the pleasure of normal speech, where silence had been the first of the prison commandments. The society recognized in him an individual, sentient, sensitive man, with the ability and the right of independent thought. In truth, this society, more than any other phenomenon of the Massachusetts prison, proclaimed the fact that the Auburn system did not compass all wisdom in prison discipline. Whether the society ultimately failed or succeeded, the first great step had been thus taken in Massachusetts toward establishing inmate interest and inmate participation in the principles and the methods of administration of the institution. And, with a prophetic voice, Gray designated the prison ag an "asylum and moral hospital for guilt," which, he said, some of the benevolent believed that it should be.^^ Sunday Schools had already developed in American prisons, but such gatherings had been composed of small groups of convicts, in classes taught by citizens, and held to certain well-defined religious and elementary educational lines. Undoubtedly the Sun- day School was the first step toward a larger grouping of prisoners — but the distance between small, segregated classes in Sunday School and a body embracing three-fourths of the population, for 8T Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 52. 38 Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 63. History of American Prisons 171 the discussion of ethical questions, was considerable. Sunday- Schools were but a slight departure from the cardinal principle of constant isolation of the prisoners. The mutual benefit society, on the other hand, announced by its very existence that mental intercourse among prisoners, if decent and supervised, was benefi- cial. In short, the complete integrity of the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems was challenged by this convict society — and it was a noteworthy phenomenon in the progress of American prison administration. To-day, associations of and among convicts are a part of the program of most progressive American prisons, ranging from religious associations of not especially close structure to the Mutual Welfare League, which in its original form at Auburn and Sing Sing Prisons was a democracy among the prisoners, functioning through various committees and representative groups. It is no longer surprising to find the convicts maintaining certain group organizations. It is recognized that Americans are prone to *'join" things, and many prisons have taken advantage of this trait to permit, for the good of the prison administration, the inmates to maintain certain organizations. It is also worthy of note that from 1838 on, the convicts were allowed a distinct ** Sunday suit," the Massachusetts State Prison being perhaps the only prison in the United States to give to its inmates this physical mark of recognition of the Lord's Day.'*^ George Combe, the Scottish phrenologist, visiting the prison in 1838, found the customary prison costume to be of coarse woolen cloth, with the left side blue and the right side red.^ In our chapter on the State Prison of New Jersey we shall speak of this noteworthy Scotch phrenologist and social philosopher in detail. When he visited the Massachusetts prison, he found that the prisoners appeared like tradesmen in a well-regulated factory. He examined the heads of eight or nine criminals, and found the animal organs large in proportion to those of moral sentiments and intellect, but not so much so as the average of criminals he had examined in Britain. Spurzheim in 1832 found — so the story goes — in this prison a head so well developed in moral and intellectual qualities that he couldn't conceive how the man came to be under sentence for a crime. Afterwards it was discovered that he was not guilty ! "^ Yet the gradual introduction of these much more lenient methods of dealing with the inmates was not without comment, even from the friends of humane administration. Dorothea Dix visited the prison several times during this period, and found the discipline * ' lax in the extreme. " *^ " Since the prison rules have been modi- fied, ' ' she wrote, * * or dispensed with, as time advances the difficulty 8» Combe. Notes on the United States, p. 3 82. «»B. P. D. S., 1838, p. 221. " Dix. Remarks, etc., p. 19. *2 Notes, etc. 172 History of American Prisons of preserving order and assuring obedience has increased." She published the following comparative table, indicating the growing frequency of punishment: Days solitary AprU, 1844 April, 1845 May, 1844. May, 1845 , June, 1844 June, 1845 6H 18H 5 18 5 37 A typical month may be cited to show the causes of punishments inflicted : Cases Stripes Days soUtary June, 1845. T^pfiisimr t.o ■wrnrlc 3 6 1 3 3 l\4^«1rinir a nninp xvhilp in hin rpII . . 6 4 QuarrelioK with a fellow convict ... 6 3 6 1 Gross insolence to an ofiBcer and disobedience 5 3 4 8 TT»nnlp-ni>p nnH Viavini? r>rr>hihit.pd ftrticlpa . . 1>4 2 1 Dorothea Dix continued: "The system of indulgence often works well for a few months, and pos- sibly for a year or two. . . . But I have never known any prison in which discipline is much dispensed with, which has not fallen into confusion, and in which it could be found that the good, of the convicts has eventually either morally or physically been promoted. Eules must be established and en- forced. ... I respect the feeling which has prompted the wish to dispense with forms and the appearance of restraint, and some close rules, . . . but I am, from a four years' observation of jails and penitentiaries, obliged to allow, that greater restraints are necessary in all these than our wishes, putting aside reasoning and consequences, would determine. ... It is with convicts as with children; unseasonable indulgence indiscreetly granted, leads to mischief, which we may deplore but cannot repair.*' It would be difficult to find in any present-day writings of students of American penology a more cogent statement and warn- ing as to the dangers of the too hasty or comprehensive efforts at the ''democratization" or communizing of the prison population, or of the over-trustful nature that sees in a prison population only, or largely, the place in which to experiment with advanced forms of social relationships. The honor system, too liberally installed; the mutual welfare league movement, too hurriedly superimposed upon a bewildered population, by nature looking for ''cinches'' History of American Prisons 173 and ''easy berths," can be to-day? still diagnosed by the careful yet comprehensive analysis of Dorothea Dix, written as a result of an extended investigation, over a half century ago. Favors within prison walls have to be given with great discretion; the establishment of new ''rights" for the inmates has to be accom- panied with patient and repeated interpretation to the inmates. An administration that is lenient and inclined to be idealistic gets easily the reputation of being "soft" and "easy," while the administration that closes down on privileges and seeks to revert to ancient methods can no longer, on the other hand, be regarded by the inmates as proceeding in a usual or reasonable manner. Hence, the prison administration finds itself between the two ex- tremes, and most prison wardens, who seek to think the situation through, determine to be fair and square with the inmates, granting increased privileges only gradually, and being suspicious of com- prehensive or wholesale plans for more freedom within the prison, basing their opinions upon what they know of the past, plus their own hesitation in establishing, where it is not absolutely necessary, a condition that once granted cannot be easily withdrawn. According to Dorothea Dix, there was no prison between Canada and the Carolinas and Tennessee where so much freedom was enjoyed as at Charlestown. We turn, finally in this chapter, to the industrial and financial aspect of the prison administration. Other American prisons, like Auburn and Wethersfield, featured their industrial successes dur- ing this period. Massachusetts made no such consistent record of success. Stone-cutting was for years the chief industry.*^ From 1814 to 1824, under the old-fashioned system, the total net expense of maintaining the prison had been $78,328.44. For the prison, the State had paid out from 1805 to 1828 more than $300,000.** There followed then several exceptional years of activity in stone- cutting. But in the entire period from 1828 to 1846, the total net earnings of the prison above all expenses amounted to but $9,522.84. In short, it just paid expenses, salaries, food, clothing, bedding, and the bounties to discharged convicts being paid out of gross earnings.^ The prison was, however, a busy institution. The total gross earnings from 1832 to 1846, inclusive, amounted to $516,461.96, the average annual per capita sum earned by each prisoner for the prison being $121.42.^* Under the Auburn system, introduced with the new prison building, no overstint was allowed.*^ On his dis- charge, the prisoner received five dollars and a suit of clothes."** Combe wrote in his diary in 1838 that the prisoners appeared like tradesmen in a well-regulated factory. *«B. p. D. S., 1826, p. 16. **B. p. D. S., 1828, p. 164. 4S n-fair t> T» in Ann 'Wrk **B. P. D. S., 1828, p. 164. *« Gray. P. D. in App. No. 1. *«Gray, p. 77. «B. P. D. S., 1832, p. 539. *8B. P. D. S., 1833, p. 637. 174 €V American Pkdomb The f oUowing were the chief oeenpatioiis at the beginniiig of the period we have been diseoflBiiig : Totml iK^nlatian, Septembo- 30, 1826, 313: Om Owtift FortkePriMB. IBS Wm^cn 10 a TkOdn U 35 New iMildns 34 26 WariMfs aad waiten 10 6 la hoapital 10 3 RIarfcMitfca 5 1 GMMen 5 7 Oakna pidkara 8 Cooka Baiboa 3 la Mib 2 The proeeeds of the labor, in the stone department, of about one- third of the number of inmates on the prison were more than to eorer the cost of proTisions, clothing, bedding and of offieera.* To facilitate the stone indivtry, a lock-gate was baih in the part of the prison jard, throng which boats laden eoold pMB from the bay. In this basin, prisoners were permitted to bathe in the snmmer, onee each we^ for ten minutes at a time.** •B. p. D. 8^ 1827. p. lOS. CHAPTER XV CONNECTICUT With the hoilding of the new State prisGn at Wedmifiilil in IffiG and 1827, and with the appointment of Moses C. Pfldnuyy f mjaulj warden of the New Hampshire State Prison, as warden, Conneeti- cnt entered upon a period of prison adminirtration tbat m Ins tfcan twenty years brought to it the i c pntatk n of- being iMe "pattcm prison of the Anbom plan."^ The new prison October 1, 1827.* The contrast with Old Newgate^ histiKy and striking. Jnst as Old Newgate at Si—tbyij F had been a Slate scandal and a constant financial bnrdeB, ao now Wedmsfidd gvev to be the pride of the State and far niMPe Hun a adlf-«^porting institation. The new Comeetieiit pi and then passed it in the raee tor prisons. In the increasing^ heated dJacDiarions of the lelativv merits of the Anbum and Pennsylvania systems, Wethenfidd became ultimately the mainstay of the Aalnim sappotttn. Its fame traveled even to Europe, and ardent phihisi^hieal were there made of the principles of prism by the Freneh and the Germans. Wethersfidd prodneed large and eonstnietive almost complct^ the d^nands of the period for a It had been eeonomieally bnih^ the 136 edOs on the Anhnm plan having been erected for approximatelT $30,000, as wdi as a keeper's house, hospital, offices, and a d^artment for fenale eonriels who were under charge of a matron, Mrs. Gnswold.' Later hofhlingB, including workshops, were baih by the labor of the eonHets wi& equal economy. The celk in the new prison boildiog were 7 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches wide and 7 f e^ h^L. The boildfing was four stories in hei^t,^ 177 feet long, 48 feet wide and 36 feet high.* Wethersfield s sucees was pnmari(f due to the two PilsbaiTs, Moses C. and Amos (bom in Londonderry, N. H^ in 1805), were wardens from the start in 1827 until 1S45. because of ill health in 1830 and his son sacceeding Pilsbury, a native of Newberry, MaHMrhn aetts, had been a tenant in the War of 1812, and was a sdf-made man. He warden of the New Hami>shire prison in 1818. Many years later he was called the ^'founder asd head of improvaMBta in o«r prisons, at least in the New England States."* Rcvort •{ Directon. 1S44. B. P. D. S^ MiB«tcs •€ [1751 •B.P. D. S^lSlf,*. 110. •Save, pu 3. •BtecnSiicttl SketK* U 1S49. 176 History of American Prisons *'TMs accomplished disciplinarian, whose mere look was suflacient to quell the fiercest of these hardened creatures with whom he had to deal, was a man of medium stature, calm and gentle in aspect and demeanor, full of tender- ness and human sympathy. ' ' ' Moses Pilsbury 's reputation was made largely in Concord, where he maintained the State prison of New Hampshire on a paying basis, both before and after his service in Connecticut. He was said to be the first warden who made a prison more than self-sup- porting, and who read the Bible daily to the prisoners assembled. He died in Derry, N. H., in 1848, aged 70. Amos Pilsbury, when but nineteen years of age, was appointed watchman and guard 'at the New Hampshire State Prison in 1824, and became deputy warden the following year. With his father he went to Connecticut in 1827, holding the position of deputy warden in Wethersfield also. In 1830 he was appointed warden. Two dominant characteristics were prominent in Amos Pilsbury 's long wardenship. He created a remarkably lucrative prison for Connecticut, and he established and developed a clear-cut system of prison discipline. The two Pilsburys achieved the reputation of being the best prison keepers in the world.* Of the two, Amos became far better known, his career in Wethersfield being succeeded by similar service in the Albany penitentiary. We find in Amos Pilsbury the first noted professional prison warden, with a system that for the time was enlightened and constructive. Captain Lynds of Sing Sing and Auburn was in the business of running a prison, but we do not gain from him a penal philosophy. Moreover, Lynds was a man of cruelty, and of limited vision. Pilsbury was the first to exemplify through a relatively long period of administrative activity that wardens are made, and not simply born of political will or favor. He was a salient and dominant figure at a time when prison administration was developing into a profession, and prison discipline into a system. He was thus described, in 1840, by a writer in the Phila- delphia Courier, who claimed to have studied as many peniten- tiaries as any man of his age : ** Captain Pilsbury has the true system of management. It is the mild system, that which appeals to the better instead of the worst feelings of human nature. He seldom punishes, but when he does he takes special pains to show the criminal that he regards him as an unfortunate human being, not as a brute. Here is the mistake made in other penitentiaries. ' ' " Of '* Captain '^ Pilsbury, as he was called, there exist several stories. A certain desperate convict named Scott was serving a term of fifteen years at Wethersfield. He at one time cut off one hand to avoid work, but was immediately attended to and in an hour was turning a large crank with the other hand. Pilsbury wrote in 1835 : ^^ "Convicts cannot be managed as they should be unless they know for a certainty that punishment will be inflicted for the violation of the rules of the prison. The State prison is designed to be a place of punishment." ' Op. Cit., p. 8. 8 Sketch of American Prisons (Year 1860), p. 16. » Biographical Sketch of Amos Pilsbury, p. 9. !» Report of Directors, p. 16. History of American Prisons 177 Crawford in 1832 found Wethersfield not using corporal punish- ment, yet discipline was well enforced. The penalties were solitary- confinement in a darkened cell, and reduction in diet. The prison was said to be extremely well managed, and great attention seemed to be paid to the moral and religious instruction of prisoners. Yet, firm as Pilsbury was with the prisoners, he gave evidences of believing also in the sense of honor in at least some prisoners. A committee of inquiry reported, in 1835, that when both the Pilsburys were at Wethersfield, the male convicts who were in their employ, probably as domestic servants, were permitted to go out of the prison and about the town of Wethersfield. ''On one or more instances the convicts, to the number of three or four, at a time, were sent with a guard to Hartford in a boat. ... It might be to show the extent of moral restraint, which these wardens had the tact to impose upon their prisoners. Let the cause be what it may, the Committee report it as an error which has not often been, and probably never will again be, repeated. ' ' " The story is exceedingly interesting to the student, for it is the earliest instance we have found in the new system of anything approaching the ' ' trusty ' ' system of dealing with specific prisoners, picked for their apparent trustworthiness. It became ultimately customary in the State prisons to trust a few picked inmates, to give them positions of a certain diminished responsibility to enable them to enjoy certain favors not granted the other inmates. Out of the trusty system grew finally the honor system, in which the trust is spread by the warden over larger groups, and in which the self-respect and the self-expression of the inmate is given a much larger field. In the case of the inmates taken by the guard in a boat to Hartford several miles away, there may have been even little of the trusty element, for a guard accompanied them. But it is recorded, as above stated, that inmates were allowed to go about the town of Wethersfield. And this young warden had courage and confi- dence, as is illustrated by the following anecdote- ^^ ''Captain Pilsbury on one occasion was told that a prisoner who had been recently committed had sworn to kill him and that he had actually sharpened his razor for that purpose. Without hesitancy he sent for the man to come to his ofl&ce. " 'I wish you to shave me,' said the warden, and seating himself added, 'Here is all the apparatus.' The man pleaded want of skill. 'Never mind,' said the warden, 'you are not intractable, and you will soon learn, and I in- tend you to perform my toilet duties daily.' "The man with trembling hands went to work; he performed the shaving poorly, for he was wholly disarmed and was trembling more from fear, blended with growing confidence in the warden, than for the continuance of his fell purpose to take his life. "When asked the next day why he did not cut his throat while he was shaving him, as he said he would, he exclaimed: ' May God forgive me, but I did intend to kill you if I could have found an opportunity, but now my hatred is broken down t » * i» " Report of Committee on State Prisons, 1833, p, 17. "Biographical Sketch, p. 9. I'' Biographical Sketch, p. 10. 178 History of American Prisons Several variants of this story are worth recording, as evidencing other angles of this noteworthy early illustration of the applica- tion, on the one side, of the trusty system, and on the other of plain ''grit" and confidence on the part of the prison warden. Miss Martineau, in her ' ' Society in America. ' ' ^® places on the warden 's lips the words: ''I have been told that you meant to murder me, but I thought I might trust you. " " God bless you, sir, you may ! ' ^ replied the regenerated man. The chronicler of the Philadelphia Courier states that neither version was quite correct, but that the warden, hearing from prisoners that they were afraid to be shaved by the desperate criminal, who was the same Scott that afterwards cut off his hand, took his seat in the barber 's chair, with the outcome as above told. And within the last few months the writer of this study has heard a very similar story attributed to a former warden and a barber in Sing Sing Prison. The board of directors in 1831 indicated the policy of the prison administration : ^* "Corporal punishment is rare, but mistaken kindness is bad for a certain class of convicts. The comfort of the convicts should not be so studied as to render the prison a desirable residence. When this becomes the case, our criminal code becomes a bounty law for crime." . . . "The Legisla- ture never intended that the appetites of the convicts should be consulted in the variety of the food provided for them. Miss Martineau 's book records graphically several other stories of the humanness and administrative sagacity of Pilsbury. It is stated that a certain incorrigible negro was permitted to be on the ''range" of cells, on agreement that the warden and the negro would trust each other. Finally, however, the warden had to take him to a solitary cell, because he did not live up to his pledge to behave. On the way to the cell, Pilsbury said to the negro : "Do you think you been fair with me?" The negro burst into tears, and Pilsbury, believing in the negro's remorse, gave him again the free range of the cellhouse. He reformed entirely. An inmate of the prison sought to escape, and sprained his ankle in his unsuccessful attempt. Pilsbury did not chide him, but actually in the middle of the night arose and made the prisoner's ankle comfortable with the warden's own pillow. Again reforma- tion was reported to have ensued. To the writer of this study, Mrs. Butler, daughter of Zebulon R. Brockway, said in July, 1921, that when she was younger, it was a byword in the Brockway family that when a certain fixed and intense look came over Mr. Brockway or one of the others in the family, it was "the Pilsbury eye." It is hardly too much to say that Wethersfield, under Amos Pilsbury, was the training school and standardizer of the system of prison discipline that flourished in American prisons throughout the nineteenth century, and out of which developed the American reformatory system. The connection is direct and clear. It was i*B. p. D. S., 1831, p. 520. "Martineau. Society in America, Vol. II, p. 282. History of American Prisons 179 not from Auburn and Sing Sing that the lessons came, but from Wethersfield, and from Amos Pilsbury, who engaged Zebulon R. Brockway as a clerk in Wethersfield Prison in 1848. Brockway went with Pilsbury to the Albany Penitentiary from 1851 to 1853. Brockway has written in his autobiography : ' ' Fifty Years of Prison Service, ' ' ^'^ that the Pilsbury system of prison management, exem- plified first at Wethersfield, as related to the economies and discipline, constituted a sound and invaluable basis for building the * ' Ideal Prison system for a State, ' ' an article which Mr. Brockway read at the first National Prison Congress at Cincinnati in 1870, a basis which Mr. Brockway also naturally built upon when, six years later, he became the first superintendent of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Mr. Brockway wrote : **The stringent discipline maintained by the Pilsburys is necessary for the desirable institutional and individual prison economies; reformatory dis- ciplinary training devoid of some friction is by that sign shown to be fallacious. ' ' One day, Mr. Pilsbury, accompanied by the board of directors of the prison, entered the shoeshop, the discipline of which had been demoralized during Mr. Pilsbury 's absence, while he was suspended on charges, from which he was later absolved. The prisoners arose from their seats, armed with their shoe knives, and demanded that Mr. Pilsbury leave the shop. This he refused to do, telling the prisoners that though at that moment he had no authority over them, he would not leave until they had returned to their work. **His bold attitude and strong personality so dominated them that one by one the men, including their leader and spokesman, resumed their seats and their work," wrote Mr. Brockway,^^ who adds that shortly after this event, Mr. Pilsbury, on a visit to Sing Sing, discovered the instrument known as the cat-o'-nine tails, which he brought back to Wethersfield, applied to the first disturber on the following morning, and restored thereby as if by magic good order, industrial efficiency and salutary discipline. The cat was rarely used afterwards. The charges against the administration of Mr. Pilsbury were investigated by a Legislative Committee in 1832, and were typical of similar allegations against prison executives rising from time to time in other States. Briefly, it was claimed that the accounts were not kept according to law ; that the prisoners were not getting enough food ; that for several weeks they were furnished with bad water ; that they suffered from cold and bad air ; that the sick were treated with great cruelty ; that the by-laws were disregarded ; that there were depredations upon public property; that the prisoners were illegally punished, and that prisoners were permitted to leave the prison. In general, the charges were either ''not proved" or ''ex- plained." However, as cited above, there were instances in which "Fifty Years of Prison Service, p. 34. "Fifty Years of Prison Service, p. 29. 180 History of American Prisons the convicts had been used outside the prison. A novel comment of the Committee follows: **The Committee is persuaded that the convict, when once in his cell, en- joys as much of warmth and purity (of air) as are to be found in the well- filled tenement of a crowded city, and at no time does he suffer more hardship than an ordinary seaman on a voyage. ' ' " When Mr. Pilsbury was reappointed by a new board of directors, in 1833, the board reported that the prisoners had sought to dictate the appointment of a new warden. They presented a man- datory petition to the new directors — and there had been a virtual mutiny in the shoe shop. They had threatened that if certain officers were appointed, they would kill them. The directors, in their report, stated that this condition came directly from the let- ting down of unrelenting and firm discipline during the brief wardenship of a Mr. Montague after the suspension of Mr. Pilsbury. Under Montague the prisoners talked, arranged plans, and the underkeepers traded with the convicts. There was compensation for overwork; food, fruit and delicacies were bought, and there were numerous newspapers in the cells. Montague was removed by the new directors and Pilsbury reappointed. ''Prison management by the Pilsburys always held predominant the aim and the inspiration of the economies. Profitable employment of prisoners, so that the cost of supporting prisons should be defrayed out of the products of their labor, was a tenet instilled by Moses Pilsbury, made remarkably effective by Amos Pilsbury at Wetherfield and Albany, and afterwards by his son Louis D. Pilsbury in his m^knagement of the State prisons of New York. ' ' 21 What were Amos Pilsbury 's conclusions, toward the close of his first score of years of prison service, as to the reformative value of the system of prison discipline that he had espoused? Not opti- mistic. He wrote: "After an experience of twenty years, I am constrained to say that the effect in general has not been to reform those who in early life have been disposed to crime, even when the best opportunities have been afforded to them for reformation. ' ' ^" Dorothea Dix wrote in 1845 : "We claim too much of our prisons, on whichever system established.^ We too often judge convicts by false standards. We promise, through all reformed prison systems, too much, even under the most favorable modes of administering them. It is not easy to correct a trivial, inconvenient habit, for a short time indulged; shall a whole life of wrong and mistake be amended by a few years of imprisonment?" Thus we find her condemning in considerable measure the leni- ency of the Massachusetts system, which was based upon a belief in this capacity for good reactions by the convict to very humane treatment, and also condoning the ineffectiveness of all systems in general, on the ground that too much is expected of the prison as a reformative institution. She has, we found, excused flogging when 18 Report of Comm., p. 11. i»Dix. Remarks, p. 18. 20 Dix. Remarks, p. 67. 21 Fifty Years of Prison Service, p. 30. History of American Prisons 181 necessary. We cite quotations from her because she was unusually enlightened, and yet unable to develop a clear penal philosophy. How much less might the wardens of the period, harassed by a thousand cares, solve the increasingly complex prison problems? Let us turn to a study of the industrial effectiveness of Wethers- field. Old Newgate, prior to the establishment of Wethersfield, had been for years an average expense to the State of $5,680. For the first six months of the new prison, ending March 30th, 1828, there was already a surplus of $1,017 over all costs of management and support, including the salaries of the officers.^^ By 1831, the prison industries had earned a surplus of $17,139,^^ and if there was included the annual expense that would have been incurred had Old Newgate been continued instead of Wethersfield, the State had already saved over $41,000, or enough to more than pay for the construction of the new prison. By 1843, the earnings by the prison industries, over and above all expenses of the prison, had amounted to over $107,000, which from time to time had been turned back into the State treasury.^® The women prisoners had been placed by 1831 in separate cells. In that year the prison chaplain, Gerrish Barrett, wrote : ^^ **I suppose the female department here is the best arranged of any in the world. Formerly, when they were all in one room, the noise they made might be heard at a distance; and hair, torn from each others' heads, might be seen strewed about the floor. Now, they are lodged in separate cells, more than support themselves by their labor, and are much changed for the better as to their outward appearance.*' What it cost to run a prison was shown in the balance sheet for 1831 : Income. Expenditures. Smith $818 96 Provisions $3,190 60 Coopers 852 19 Clothing and bedding 719 89 Shoe 4,003 28 Wages, subsistence, fuel, Nail 527 84 etc 3,037 89 Carpenters 2,408 52 Hospital 293 78 Tailors 19 02 Chair 4,247 94 Females 45 47 Interest 13 84 Charged for laborers 594 15 Visitors 634 97 Total expenditures $7,342 16 Total 15,166 18 Balance gain $7,824 02 Out of this capacity for earning a handsome surplus came to Amos Pilsbury two constructive ideas, namely, the subsidizing, from the surplus earnings of the prisoners, of the erection or improvement of county jails, and the erection of a State asylum for the insane. County jails in Connecticut, as in other States, were places of promiscuous association and idleness. They possessed the ^B. p. D. S., 1828, p. 15. ~ ^B, p. D. S., Vol. II, 1840. »B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 470. 2«B. P. D. S., 1843, p. 55. 182 History of American Prisons worst attributes of the old type of State prisons, like Newgate in New York. Moreover, they received the lesser offenders, and were literally the feeders for the State prison. There was continued concern in the board of directors, undoubt- edly stimulated thereto by the warden, as to the reformability of the convicts, and also as to the possibilities of the prevention of crime if approached early enough in life. The directors in 1836 found little hope of reformation in the State prison convicts. They cited numerous facts confirming this opinion from other States. Reformation, they held, came best through preventive education: *'Mere confinement will not do it; their minds must be improved, new desires must be created, new impulses awakened, and they must be made to realize that there are other joys than the sensual." Hartford County had built in 1837 a very modern county jail, embodying the architectural and disciplinary features of Wethers- field. Only as the county jails inculcated the tested principles of prison discipline into their own administration could the army of recruits to the prison be reduced. In 1840, Mr. Pilsbury proposed to the General Assembly of Connecticut that the warden be author- ized to pay $1,000 to each county in Connecticut that would under- take to build a county jail on the plan of Hartford County's institution.^"^ This measure, carried in the General Assembly, was designated by the Boston Prison Discipline Society as probably the most important measure that had ever been adopted in the country for the improvement of county prisons. The directors of the State prison were to judge as to whether the county prison had been constructed in accordance with the terms of the law. In 1841, the warden was authorized to pay to Hartford, New Haven and New London counties the bounties of $1,000 each. The warden now went further, and urged that the surplus earnings, to the extent of from $3,000 to $5,000 a year, be appropriated to the erection of an asylum for the insane poor.^^ There were at this time at least six insane convicts at the prison. As early as 1834 the board of directors had reported: "There are, and ever have been, in the prison a class of convicts that either from partial derangement, or deficiency of intellect, or turbulence, pre- tending to be insane, cannot at all times be kept quiet; these sometimes in the night season make a noise, and by the cry of fire or some other alarm, greatly agitate the prisoners around them and disturb the whole establish- ment.* The directors suggest a separate block of cells for these, and for the useless and broken-down prisoners." The warden estimated that the insane poor in the State were at least in the proportion of one to every thousand of the population. The most dangerous of this group found their way into the State and county prisons, into cells or chains, for purposes of safe keeping. Pilsbury wrote in 1841 : ^ **They are unfit subjects of punishment, whether their own good or the good of the criminal is considered, to say nothing of humanity and public justice." 2*B. P. D. S., p. 831, p. 467. 27 B. P. D. S., 1841, p. 52. 28 Report of Directors, 1841, Warden's Report, p. 7. History of American Prisons 183 A number of States had already made provision for the insane poor and criminal, but none had done so by the earnings of the criminal population. Connecticut's delay in this provision would be less regretted if it should provide such institutional care without taxing the State treasury of the people. In 1844, the directors reported that the subsidizing of county jails had caused great improvement at Hartford, New Haven and Windham, but that in a number of counties the gift of $1,000 was not sufficient to encourage counties to undertake the very consider- able expenditures necessary to the erection of a new county jail. Therefore, it would be well to distribute the surplus earnings of the prison to each and every county : **Then the State will have not only the pattern prison on the Auburn plan, but also a modern county jail in every county of the State. ' ' ^ On the other hand, it is clear that Pilsbury had not arrived at the point, in his penal philsosphy, of giving to the prisoners a share of their own earnings. It is a significant statement of Brockway,^* that Amos Pilsbury, in his sick room at Albany, just before his death, expressed with deep feeling his regret that he ever paid into the public treasury the earnings of prisoners instead of using such surplus funds for the prisoners' benefit. But, in the height of the Wethersfield operations, thirty years before, the intellectual or social welfare of the prisoners still counted little as against the financial advantages accruing to the State. We have from the prison chaplain, Gerrish Barrett, in 1831, a picture of the intellectual capacity of the inmates at that time : ^ "No convict now in this prison received a liberal education. Very few have come under Sabbath School instruction. 76 are unable to write; 106 out of 141 fail of spelling many words of 1 or 2 syllables. 30 cannot read; 60 out of 150 were separated from parents before they were 10 years old, and 36 others before 15 years old." The age of the prison population seems to have been in these years strikingly young on the average. In 1829, it was reported that of the 134 prisoners, 102 were under 30, and 24 were short of 20 years. "We need some provision for correction and reformation of juvenile offenders, and punishment of minor offenses. Such offenses now go un- punished often because of lack of proper punishments." In 1835 there were further findings of Brewer : "Few prisoners in early life had good examples or proper instruction. One-half the whole number were deprived of homes before they were ten years old. Accounts of villainy in newspapers stimulate some to crime — also the liking for notoriety. "Lazy habits, roving dispositions, \'iolent shocks of mind, such as love of gambling, are frequent preludes to their careers. The hardened convicts have not had their stubborn wills subdued in boyhood. "There is a close connection between crime and the absence of moral pledges and domestic links. About half the convicts have no parents alive. 138 of the 200 never married. Of 62 married, half were not living with their » Report of Directors, 1844. »> Fifty Years of Prison Life, p. 33. »«B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 475. 184 History of American Prisons wives at the time of committing crime. Three-fourths of the convicts have been intemperate. Ignorance and crime are closely connected. No temperate and industrious follower of a trade, or similarly constituted head of a family or owner of real estate, was found among the 200 convicts. Not one of the 200 received a collegiate or classical education. Only 17 out of the 200 could write or cipher as far as the single rule of three. ' ' ** In 1841, Josiah Brewer, the resident chaplain, asked rather timidly if there were not too much attention paid to pecuniary- advantages, and not enough to intellectual help in the prison dis- cipline. And Dorothea Dix wrote in 1845 that ''the chief defect in Wethersfield is the too little time given to moral instruction, and too little time to the prisoners for reading and self -improvement.*^ A committee of inquiry in 1842 found a life of deadly monotony the prisoner 's portion : *'The voluntary laborer works for himself, and has holidays for recreation. The prisoner works for others. His variety is from cell to work bench and from work bench to cell. His relaxation for six days is to march across the same yard, work at the same bench, return to the same cell, to eat his meals from the same kit, sit on the same stool, and lie in the same bunk. He rises and lies down, goes in and goes out, moves and stands still, begins work and quits work, always under authority, never from free choice, except a choice of evils.'''"' In this year, the chaplain became more insistent. He wanted a school for the younger criminals in prison, one-fourth of the entire prison population was under 21 years of age ; some of them were just entering their teens! The chaplain won his case from the directors. In 1843 the directors extolled the unusual efforts they had made to instruct the younger convicts. There was now a Bible and reading class of 30 inmates under the age of 21 on Sun- day taught by the warden, chaplain and clerk. Two of the chaplains at Wethersfield, Gerrish Barrett and Josiah Brewer, possessed analytical, constructive, and deeply religious minds. Particularly was Gerrish Barrett a lover of character analysis. He has left some very interesting and graphic studies of prisoners in the long-forgotten chaplain's annual reports of Wethersfield. Some of his observations follow :^^ Men sleep more, dream more, have stronger craving for food and time past seems to be shorter, and time to come longer in prison than when at liberty. It is always found that open acts of crime are preceded by smaller and secret offenses; and seldom is one convicted of crime whose life had been regular till he was 18 or 20 years old. Some in prison make singular development of the social principle. They can hardly be prevailed upon to kill, or even to frighten, the rats and mice that happen to come into their cells. They are pleased with their company, love to look at their bright eyes, and see them jump about the cell. By a peculiar noise which they make, they call them to the mouth of the ventila- tors, and there divide their food with them. Yet these same men have so little true benevolence that if at liberty they would probably not respect the property, if they did the person, of their fellow man. Some pass their lonely hours in singing to themselves without audible sound. They can judge of the measure, harmony and melody of a piece of 31 Dix, Remarks, p. 22. 32 Report of Comm. on State Prisons, 1842, p. 41. 8* B. P. D. S., 183B, p. 876. 35 B. P. D. S., 1837, p. 128. History of American Prisons 185 music, and highly relish its performance, by merely causing imaginary sounds to pass through their minds. They lie awake at night, enjoying sweet sounds of silent melody. Much the greater portion of convicts are not only ignorant but ex- tremely grovelling and sensual. Their prevailing sentiments are the sexual, and these are extremely gross. They spend hours in the silence and solitude of their cells, forming in their minds pictures of these acts of sin. . . . It may be predicted with considerable certainty what course of conduct a convict will pursue after leaving prison, if it can be ascertained what were Ms prevailing thoughts and feelings while in prison. A bad man, if left to himself, is not likely to grow better. As a spider weaves its web from its own bowels, so will many criminals weave schemes of future villainy from the prevailing and most agreeable oxercises of their own souls. Convicts are men, and differ in moral character like other men. Some give ^ood evidence of being reformed, some doubtful evidence, and some, most miserable, seem to have wandered beyond the precincts of hope. Reformation takes place in different degrees. The number discharged from the prison since its beginning does not vary greatly from 400. Of that number I should think I had heard from about one-quarter, exclusive of those who have made themselves notorious by a repetition of their criminal offenses. Excepting those last named, I do not know of more than three or four whose conduct is not represented as being better than it was before their imprisonment. It is curious to observe what strong terms of reprobation convicts, once lovers of rum, often, when sober and in solitude, heap upon rumsellers. These are refreshingly sagacious and careful observations, made at a time when there was still very little published regarding the convict as an individual. These commentaries were the forerunner of the later studies by chaplains of the habits and characteristics of the prison populations. The chaplains were not medical men, and we shall find that the physicians, like Doctor Franklin Bache in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, contributed more scientific studies of the inmates. But the chaplain was close to the men, and sensed more than did the warden and the other officers the intensely human side of the inmate's life and aspirations. It is from the chaplains and the physicians and the prison reform organizations, in this period, that we derive most of the still ele- mentary interpretation of the psychology of the inmate population. The wardens and the boards of inspectors seem to have been too busy with the administrative details to regard the prison problem as fundamentally one of human beings rather than of machinery, industry, and efficiency. Gerrish Barrett left Wethersfield in 1839, to become a traveling agent of the Boston Prison Discipline Society. He was one of the earliest acute observers of the physical and mental reactions of inmates to confinement. His successor, Josiah Brewer, who secured the educational classes for juveniles, was but three years at the prison. Not until 1841 do we find the ** mechanics" of Connecticut suffi- ciently stirred by the competition of prison-made goods in the open market to cause the Legislature to investigate. So similar are the items of the petitions of the mechanics to those that had for some years found their way into the New York Legislature, that the stimulus is easily traced. The mechanics claimed that the 186 History of American Prisons prison-made goods interfered with business, and caused industrial prostration in some cases ; that the prisons were entirely supported by certain classes of mechanical trades, as a result of this successful competition; that there should be a law against the continuation or introduction of any business that was carried on elsewhere in the State, except in articles for the consumption of the prison or of other State institutions. An exception might be made in the case of articles, nine-tenths of which were supplied by foreign importa- tion. Furthermore, no convict should be henceforth leased to any individual or company. No keeper or other individual should be interested in any contract. No steam engine or other power for propelling machinery should be introduced into the prison. All goods manufactured in prison should be marked or labelled as from the institution. The Legislative committee's analysis showed, of a population of 196 convicts, employments as follows: On Contracts. Shoemaking, at 37 ^^ cents 25 Chairmaking, varnishing and finishing, at 35 to 40 cents 35 Eule making, at 40 cents 12 Table cutlery, at 45 cents 25 97 97 For the State. Chair seat frames 12 Knotting, splitting and shaving cane 20 Chair seating 50 Making palm leaf hats (women) '. 5 Making cigars (men) 2 89 89 186 A great variety of trades had been introduced and discontinued at various times, such as: Wagon making. Brittania spoons. Chisels. Nail making. Hammers. Screw plate. Clock carving. Cooperage. Eifles and rifle pistols. Shovels and forks. Tailoring. Carriage springs. Whips. Spectacles. Sledges. The Legislative committee agreed with the mechanics that in certain industries the injury was serious. Shoe making did not seem to injure seriously, but chair making and rule making worked great hardship. Table cutlery was largely a foreign product, and was admissible in the prison. The first introduction into the prison of a mechanical trade» reported the committee, resulted for some time afterward in a greater injury than was commonly supposed. Without the inter- ferences of prison labor, private enterprise adjusts itself to supply and demand. Prison labor causes the withdrawal of private busi- ness in some cases, which leads to the withdrawal of capital, the History of American Prisons 187 interruption of profits, and loss of wages and skill to the workmen. The changes of trades in prison lead to a dislocation of the equili- brium of production and to injury to those in the trades. The amount of injury depends upon the extent and proportion of the interference. When a small number of workmen can supply a trade, the interference of prison labor is very serious. The absolute amount of injury will be greater than the oversupply caused by the prison operations. Ten per cent, of excess of a commodity will reduce prices much more than ten per cent. There- fore, if the prison industries cause an oversupply, the mechanics and others lose more than the State gains. These facts were not earlier discovered, because the industrial system in the prisons is of modern date. Nor was it so effective as it now was, went on the committee's report, and machinery had not been introduced to such an extent. Employers do not protest so long as their business is reasonably profitable, but only when the competition becomes keen, and profits fail. People at large must also be informed and be convinced, before a grievance will be redressed. These were all reasons why the matter had not come earlier to a head. The committee found that the frequent changes in industries at the prison had been injurious to mechanics, and of no benefit to the State or to the convicts, and should not be allowed. Many suitable articles of foreign make might be produced at the prisons. The -committee did not specify the particular articles to be made. That was a matter for the warden and the directors to determine. Chair making and rule making should be discontinued. Trades in the prisons should be limited to those that would not interfere seriously with the mechanics. No mechanical trade should be introduced henceforth into the prison except for the manufacturing of articles, the chief supply of which should be imported from abroad. So far as possible the prison should make articles for the prison and other State institutions; prisoners might be employed at trades that they had learned and practiced before coming to prison. The committee did not favor the contract system, which afforded a chance for favoritism on the part of the warden, and collusion between the contractor and the overseers, in order to get more work out of the prisoners. Overseers might easily have a secret interest in the contract, or receive perquisites. On the other hand, the contractors took the burden off the shoulders of the State. Con- tractors had to furnish stock and sell the product. They lessened the amount of State capital invested, lessened the bother and hazards of purchases, sales and debts, and also decreased the labor and responsibility of the warden. The committee recommended that hereafter the contracts should not be made for the labor of the prisoners, but for the purchase by the contractors of the finished work of the prisoners. Also, that ample notice of all pending contracts should be given. Dorothea Dix, analyzing this prison in 1845, found the institu- tion, for all its excellent system, aiming not merely to make the 188 History of American Prisons prison support itself, which in her opinion all prisons should do, but to render also convict labor, and the exhibition of the convicts to the public, a source of profit to the State.®® This custom pre- vailed in all the prisons of the Auburn type in the Northern States, as indicated by the following typical facts : Visitors' fees at Auburn prison in 1842 were $1,692.75, in 1845, $1,942.75. In two years, this indicates visits of 14,542 persons at 25 cents per person. Visitors to Sing Sing prison in 1843 paid $311.75, and in 1844, $236.62, makiiig 2,194 visitors. Income from visitors for two years at Charlestown, Massachusetts State prison, $1,487.75, or 5,951 persons. Visitors' fees in 1843 and 1844 at Wethersfield, a total of $548.12^^ cents, indicating at least 2,192 visitors. At Windsor, Vermont, in one year, 796 visitors. At the New Hampshire State prison, in one year, 500 visitors. At the Ohio State prison, in Columbus, in 1844, receipts of $1,038 from visitors.'' The prisons have always been made, in a way, show places, and the fee of a shilling or ''two bits," imposed upon the curiosity seeker, was probably partly for the purpose of keeping the attend- ance of visitors down. Victor Hugo once said that there is nothing so interesting as what is going on behind a high wall when it cannot be seen, and the attraction of the mysterious prison has always been great for many people. In modern days, the imposing of an admission fee has largely been abandoned, on the theory that convicts should not be exhibited as so and so many animals or curiosities. Here and there, however, the custom still exists. ««Dix. Remarks, p. 51. •'Dix. Remarks, p. 43. CHAPTER XVI NEW JERSEY *'A mere burlesque of a prison!" was the description given in 1829 by a witness to a Legislative committee, in describing the old State penitentiary at Lamberton, New Jersey, one and one-half miles south of Trenton. The prison had been established in 1798 upon that site, for the sole reason that 'Hhe land had been given by somebody. ' ' ^ Like other American prisons of the period, it was greatly influenced by the Walnut Street Prison of Philadelphia, and contained large cell-rooms. In time, buildings for shops and other purposes had been added, scattered about the yard without unity or design.^ All the evils of promiscuous association, characteristic of other prisons of the first period, had become notorious at the New Jersey prison, accord- ing to the above report. There was hardly a semblance of discipline at Lamberton. From the front windows of the kitchen, prisoners passed and repassed articles to people in the street; discharged prisoners could approach unobserved the various parts of the prison, and throw articles over the walls. Released convicts had even broken into the prison at night, and the authorities were fearful of a jail delivery through an organized body of men recently released from prison.® There was so little discipline that convicts would leave their work in the shops and go into the yard. The greatest familiarity prevailed between certain keepers and certain convicts. There was smuggling and trading between them. A certain desperate group of prisoners was called the * * Stanch Gang. ^ ' ''They will lie, and swear to it; they will steal provision, and carry it off; they will lurk in the kitchen and steal other men's provision; they will threaten each others' lives; they will make dirks; they will make their own cards. They have rules by which they are bound to each other; one rule is that if a man tells anything, they will fall afoul of him, and beat him. Men who tell on others are called 'snitch.' " (The word "Snitch" is a term still current as a verb — to tell tales, to give information about.) * In the cells, under this first system, there was abundant conversa- tion. Supervision was lax, and the construction of the prison made the approach of the keeper audible at a distance. One prisoner made a complete ladder in his cell, with which to scale the walls. The news of the outside world percolated quickly into the institu- tion. Riots were frequent, and hard to subdue. Convicts to the number of 108 had escaped since the founding of the prison in 1798 — more than one-twelfth of all admissions, a number without 1 Report of Joint Comm. Votes of Assembly, 1830, p. 411. 2B. P. D. S., 1830. p. 420. ' Report of Joint Comm., p. 414. * Report of Joint Comm. Votes of Assembly, 1830, p. 411. [189] 190 History op American Prisons parallel.^ One keeper had been stabbed, two prisoners shot, and one killed. Fifty-five of the runaways had never been recaptured. Punishments in the first period were severe. Solitary confine- ment with bread and water was much used, sometimes for from 20 to 30 days at a time. Sufferings of convicts thus punished were intense, and the convicts had to spend almost an equal time in the hospital, in recuperating. Chains were much used ; men sometimes were chained at work, and sometimes to a ** fifty-six. ' ' One lad of from 12 to 14 years was seen by the committee in 1829 wearing a neck yoke ; his arms extended from 18 to 20 inches from his head, to prevent his getting through the gates. A convict had been found in one cell in solitary confinemnet for three days with nothing but water.^ The committee found that ten prisoners were said to have died from severe punishment in their cells. The prison had never, up to the time of the committee's report, paid its own expenses from the labor of convicts.^ From 1800 to 1829, the total loss to the State caused by the prison had been $164,963, a sum equal to one-third of all the taxes raised in the State for all purposes during that period (Votes of the Assembly, 55 Gen. Ass., 1830-31), an average of $5,304 as year. Of the total number of prisoners committed, 1,206 in all, there had been, so far as known, 90 recommitments and a few reformations. An interesting "budget" of daily expenses of the prison, per capita, showed the following: Cents. Mills. Clothing 4 8 Incidental 2 9 Total excl. salaries 9 3 Officers 9 4 Total per capita per diem 18 7 The balance sheet of the prison, compared with that of Wethers- field, for the year 1829, was cited to show the loss sustained by the State of New Jersey from its prison in one year : New Jersey. Average, 90 Prisoners. Connecticut. Expenses $6,199 00 Expenses $5,876 1.3 Earnings 3,427 98 Earnings 9,105 54 Deficit $2,771 02 Surplus $3,229 41 In the "twenties" of the nineteenth century, the penitentiary had undertaken to confine a certain number of convicts in solitary confinement, without labor, during their entire sentence of 18 months or two years. The test was not a rigid one, as that of Auburn Prison in 1822 and 1823. At Lamberton, the prisoners in solitary confinement were largely unsupervised and conversed 6 Reports of Joint Comm. Votes of Assembly, 1830, p. 415. « Votes of Assembly, 1830-31, p. 94. ' Report of Joint Comm., p. 422. History of American Prisons 191 freely.^ Although their diet was restricted to half that allowed to men in the shops, this simply reduced the passions.^ This pro- cedure, which began in 1825, had no value as a test of solitary confinement, although it was cited later as such by opponents of the so-called ** separate system." The convicts were engaged in thirteen different industries, of which the chief were shoemaking, weaving, and sawing stone.^* The administrative methods, the experiences with the several indus- tries, and the various methods employed in dealing with the inmates, resembled very markedly the experiences of the Walnut Street Prison, even to the almost literal copying of the rules and regulations, and of the laws founding the earlier institution. Members of an auxiliary of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, located at Princeton, a few miles distant, visited the prison every Sunday, according to a report of the year 1828, and conducted religious services. One or more of the members visited the prisoners in solitary confinement. By the Legislature of 1829 a permanent chaplain was authorized, and an appropriation of $150 granted — a sum that the Boston Prison Discipline Society had for two years allotted for this purpose. The joint committee of the Legislature, stating that the only solution was a new prison, recommended the establishment of a modern penitentiary on the type of Auburn or Wethersfield. Obvi- ously, the conditions at the old prison were scandalous. In 1831, there was a striking increase in the number of admissions. The severities of the Eastern Penitentiary on the south, and of Auburn, Sing Sing and Wethersfield on the north, were believed to be driving convicts into New Jersey as the safest place in which to ply their trades. One-third of the commitments in 1832 were of convicts from other States than New Jersey. The Lamberton prison had no terrors for such persons." In 1833, a joint Legislative committee, declaring that the prison was an incongruous pile, without order or arrangement, and heaped together from time to time, recommended the immediate building of a new prison, not however on the Auburn plan, but modeled on the new Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, less than 30 miles away. For the first time, a State other than Pennsylvania was thereby adhering to the principle of the constant separation of prisoners. The committee based its decision on its belief that solitude was the most powerful agent in working out individual reformation. Collective labor and instruction, as practiced at Auburn, interrupted and to some extent paralyzed individual efforts at reformation. The association of convicts was fraught with evil consequences. New Jersey should adopt a system that would ensure that no convict should be seen by another. The Pennsylvania discipline was understood to be mild, the severest 8 B. p. D. S., 1827, p. 59. »B. p. D. S.. 1826, p. 14. 10 B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 120. " B. P. D. S., 1831, p. 493 ; 1832, p. 572. 192 History of American Prisons punishment inflicted being the deprivation of labor in the cell. Soli- tary labor and confinement were salutary, and deterred from crime ; the terror caused in the community by the prison would materially reduce crime within the State.^^ As to the argument that the prison would be very expensive to construct and maintain on the Pennsylvania plan, the committee stated that labor and profit were, anyway, simply a means, dic- tated by the wisest benevolence, for the health of the convict 's moral and physical powers. The best good of the convict and that of the society he had offended were the high purposes aimed at in prison discipline; and should the labor and profit be even lost, it would bear no comparison to the good to be obtained. However, a convict should in six months earn his maintenance, as had been shown in Philadelphia. The Governor of New Jersey assured the Legislature that as soon as the prison was fully organized, the entire expenses would be paid from the proceeds of the prison.^^ Therefore, in February, 1833, the Legislature authorized the erection of a new penitentiary, to hold 150 prisoners, in separate confinement at hard labor, and appropriated $130,000 toward the building of the same.^^ John Haviland, who had designed the Eastern Penitentiary, was appointed architect. Ground was selected contiguous to the then existing prison, in the form of a parallelogram, 500 feet by 300 feet. Haviland 's design included a central administration building for the dwelling houses and offices of the warden. In the rear of this building there was toi be a semi-circular observatory, 55 feet in diameter, from which five wings should radiate, like the fingers of an outspread hand. The wings would contain solitary cells, and were to be two stories high. The cells, on each side of a central corridor 14 feet wide, were 12 feet long by 8 feet wide, equipped as in the Eastern Penitentiary, each cell having its own running water and its water closet. The cells were closed from the corridor by double doors, the interior door being of wood sheathed with iron. In the door there was a small hole for observation from the corridor.^^ There were, however, to be no exercising yards connecting with the cells. Herein lay a vital and surprising defect, one that ultimately led to the breakdown of the system. The prisoners never, while the system was operating, according to the letter of the law were brought out into the sunlight — and serious mental and physical results arose therefrom. No explanation was given at the time of planning the prison as to the reason for the omission of the exercising yards, but it was probably due to economy." Haviland 's estimate of the cost of the prison was as follows: External wall $14,000 Front building, including laundry, culinary, bathing, storeroom, keeper's chambers, observatory, reservoir, belfry 15,000 Culverts, sinks, pipes, covered ways, cooking apparatus, warming and raising water into reservoir 13,000 12 B. P. D. S., 1833, p. 698. " Same, p. 699. " Crawford, App. 50. i^De Metz and Blouet. p. 66. " Crawford, App., p. 49. History of American Prisons 193 A Block, 50 cells $18,000 B Block, 75 cells 27,000 C Block, 50 cells 18,000 D Block, 75 cells 27,000 E Block, 50 cells 18,000 $150,000 The estimated per capita cost was but $500 a cell, a noteworthy reduction as compared with that of the Eastern Penitentiary. Governor Peter D. Vroom, Jr., in 1834, doubted not that when the prison was completed, it would be the most perfect in design and execution in the United States. He held that it was not even desir- able that the new prison should be a source of profit to the State. If it paid expenses the State would be satisfied.^^ In the report of the Boston Prison Discipline Society for 1833 is the record of an annual meeting of the Prison Instruction Society in New Jersey, held at the State House in Trenton in January, 1833. Most of the Legislature attended the meeting. The chief objects of the society were: **To extend to the convicts in the prisons of this State the benefits of the Sabbath school system of instruction, and also to furnish them with preach- ing. In connection with the foregoing objects, provision shall also be made for inquiring into the relative efficiency of different modes of prison dis- cipline, and of different modes of instruction.'' The New Jersey Howard Society was also established in 1833, ''to attack the barbarous practice of imprisoning debtors, and to urge better provision for the care of the insane and the reforma- tion of delinquent minors. ^ ' ^* By 1837, the new prison had been made ready for occupancy, at a cost, of $193,012.^* Haviland's estimate was thus overreached by far, because only two of the five wings had been built. Blouet reported that there were, when he visited in 1835 the prison, 192 cells, and that the total costs of construction had been approxi- mately $200,000 or over $1,000 a cell.^^ Of course, with the addition of the unbuilt wings, the per capita cost would be lowered. The old State prison was converted into a State arsenal. For the first time in this year the prison supported itself, except in the payment of salaries to the officers, a regular burden upon the State treasury. There was very uncommonly good health in the new penitentiary, one death only being recorded in 14 months, ending September 30th, 1837.^2 In the new prison there was no chapel and no chaplain. Volun- teers from the clergy of Trenton and vicinity held occasional services. Members of the Society of Friends occasionally visited the prisoners in their cells. Not until approximately 1845 were arrangements made for providing a teacher, uniting the offices of " Votes of Ass., 1834, p. 15. 18 B. P. D. S., 1834, p. 85. " Governor's Message, January, 1837. 20 De Metz et Blouet, p. 66. ^ B. P. D. S., 1837. 194 History of American Prisons moral instructor and school master. At this time, also, a suitable and fairly large library was given by several interested citizens of Jersey City and Newark.^^ The cells were very comfortable, according to one of the visitors in 1838, well ventilated and free from odor. Joseph A. Yard, a pious Methodist, was appointed warden.^* The prisoners testified to the humanity of their treatment, but a visitor, reporting to the Boston Prison Discipline Society, stated that he believed that the health of the prisoners and in some instances their minds was being injuriously affected, because of the confinement in a small room. The character of the population of the prison at this time appears from the Keeper Yard's statement of 1837,^* which shows that of 135 prisoners in confinement: 12 could read, write and cipher, and had studied geography and grammar, 25 could read, write and cipher. 24 could read and write. 30 could read only. 13 could spell. 18 knew the alphabet. 13 did not know the alphabet. Of the prison population, 51, or between one-third and one-half» were colored. The chief causes of conviction were burglary, grand larceny, and assault and battery. Of the types of criminals in prison, Dorothea Dix wrote: '^Enlightened transgressors, and men of considerable intellectual capacity, rarely are found in prison. They are too adroit, too cunning, to permit them- selves to be ensnared by the emissaries of the law. Feeble minds, too infirm of purpose to keep in the straight path, too incapable of reasoning out their truest good and best interest, and many of constitutionally depraved pro- pensities, chiefly fill . . . our penitentiaries. ' ' ^ The experiences of the prison were closely watched, to discover the effects of constant solitary confinement without open-air exer- cise upon the prisoners. For the year 1838, the prison physician, Dr. James B. Coleman, stated that there had not been as much disease as might have been anticipated. There was a peculiar tendency of the prisoners to scrofula. There had been five deaths from diseases brought into the prison by the inmates, but aggra- vated perhaps by confinement. The deaths of four were caused by abscesses in the lungs. In all cases, reported the physician, the lymphatic glands were obstructed to a degree seldom seen in outside practice.^® The board of directors had failed, according to their report, to discover the injurious effects upon prisoners that the physician had mentioned. The prisoners presented a pale and rather un- healthy appearance which the board believed was a consequence of living entirely in the shade, and not an effect of disease. The inspectors also asked if the terms of imprisonment might not be abridged because of the severi ty of punishment.^^ 21 Dix. Remarks, p. 58. 23 Same, p. 233. 2* Votes of Assembly, 1837-38, p. 442. 26 Dix. Remarks, p. 64. 26 Votes of Ass., 1838-39, p. 43. ^ Votes of Ass., 1838-39, pp. 71-73. History of American Prisons 195 In another year, the physician was more definite. Sunlight and air were essential to health. Post-mortem examinations had proved the effects that might have been anticipated. Every year of a prisoner's confinement in the cells would show a decline of the physical powers. The enervating influences of cellular confinement had been felt, although the general health was good. It is note- worthy, however, that in this year 37 persons were pardoned. The convicts who had been transferred from the old prison, where -& large part of their day had been spent outside of their cells, had not shown the effects of constant cellular confinement for the first two years, but had now become debilitated, and languid. Said the physician : **In the prison the physician will see minds that, subject to the common perceptions of out-of-door life, would be as astute as others, indulge in the amusements of the child, wasting their time, after the daily task is over, upon toys; engaged in no thought that is not immediately associated with the things about them; incapable of abstract reflection, or, if showing any evi- dence of the higher operations of the faculties, it is more the wandering of a visionary, than the operation of a well-balanced mind. "Among the prisoners there are many cases of insanity. Almost all the cases that have occurred in prison can be traced to onanism. Among the prisoners there are many who exhibit a child-like simplicity, which shows them to be less acute than when they entered. In all who have been more than a year in the prison, some of these effects have been observed. Now they are managed under the most favorable circumstances the nature of their confinement permits. . . . Were another course pursued, and the super- intendent (warden) possessed of no sympathy for the convict, in less than a year the New Jersey prison would be a bedlam. "If there be more disease in solitary confinement, it is of a peculiar char- acter, slow in its work and important in its effects upon the mind. It is for others to determine whether the old discipline, hardening the vicious in the crimes, while it preserves the body in its full vigor, so that at the expiration of the sentence the convict may go forth a more accomplished rogue than when he entered the penitentiary, is to be preferred to another which, while it subdues the evil passions, almost paralyzes them for want of exercise, leaves the individual, if still a rogue, one that may be easily detected. ' ' -'* Despite the findings of the physician, the board of inspectors maintained that under any circumstances the system was far superior to the former conditions at the prison. The inspectors doubted, however, whether many went out of the prison with good moral stamina, it was so easy under this system to be good in the prison. In 1840 there were reported few known changes for the better among the convicts. No prison, the inspectors concluded, was a school for perfect reformation. The board upheld the system of separate confinement, but maintained that under any management, the prison could not produce the unnatural results, in the way of reformations, that had frequently been claimed by the system's advocates.^* Many of the sentences were far too long, in view of the severity of constant separate confinement; ten years would be a terrible punishment, hardly to be endured. There were twelve deranged prisoners in the institution, who should have been sent to a lunatic asylum. 28 Votes of Assembly, 1839-40. 2» Votes of Assembly, 1840-41, p. 215. 196 History of American Prisons The physician reported only two deaths during the year, both however from the effects of solitary confinement. The effects of such confinement were now well determined : Diminished force of the organs generally. Particularly a weakening of the muscular fibre. Obstruction of the lymphatic glands. Vitiated nervous action. The mind suffers and the power is weakened. In 1840 the system of separate confinement broke down at the New Jersey Prison. The physcian was clearly a disbeliever in its beneficent results ; the board of inspectors was not convinced of its potency. Therefore, the principle of constant solitary confinement was abandoned when sickness required. A convict was placed in the cell of the sufferer. Inroads on health were causing constant complaints among the prisoners. Applications for pardon were made with frequency on that ground. Some prisoners were indeed pardoned who died shortly after leaving prison.®^ The cells were often conductive to sickness; there was much trouble with the heating and ventilating system, and this was rectified only after experiments conducted during several years. In winter, many of the cells were so cold as to interfere materially with the prisoner's labor. We would pause here, for a moment, to emphasize the serious inadequacy of proper ventilation in the early American prisons, particularly in those on the Auburn plan of construction. After the convicts had been for several hours in their cells at night, the air became insufferably impure. The absence of any forced ventila- tion from the individual cells, the excessive smallness of the cells, the closed windows of the cellhouses in winter, the coal stoves in the corridors, and the emanations from the inadequately bathed prison- ers made a condition that often must have been almost intolerable. The Eastern Penitentiary was better equipped, in so far as the cell windows or cell doors were concerned, for pure air could be admitted from the exercise yards to the individual cells. The Trenton prison, being without exercise yards, must have experi- enced troublesome ventilation problems.^^ In 1843, the introduction of convicts into the cells of other inmates was extended. *'To prevent the evils of solitary confinement, and especially an abuse common to this system of punishment, other convicts have been put in the cells, and the evils in many cases remedied. Cases of derangement have been prevented by this course. Those suffering from want of air have been turned into the yard for a few hours a day. More pains have been taken to ven- tilate the cells." The physician reported that another cause of better health was the rigid exaction of labor from each prisoner able to work. For * ' despondency, ' ' he was liberal in prescribing tobacco. The number a> Votes of Ass. 1840-41, p. 219. s^Dix. Remarks, p. 37. History of American Prisons 197 of insane became less. Expiration of terms, and the use of pardons, had relieved the institution of some of its problems: "The more rigidly the plan of solitary confinement is carried out, the more the spirit of the law is observed, the more the effects are visible in the health of the convicts. A little more intercourse with each other, and a little more air in the yard, has in almost every case shown a corresponding rise in the health of the individual. That an opinion to the contrary should hav^e been advocated at this time, when the animal functions are so well understood, seems like a determination to disregard science in the support of a mistaken but favored policy. ' ' ^ The reference to the ' * animal functions ' ' by the physician of the Trenton prison is a quotation from a noted phrenologist of this period, George Combe, who, born in 1788 in Edinburgh, was one of the forerunners of the anthropological school of the Italians, in so far as he attempted to determine traits and tendencies through the contemplation and analysis of physical stigmata, especially of the face and head. Doctor Combe delivered in Edinburgh a course of lectures on *' Moral Philosophy," which, collected in book form, presented a discussion of the proper treatment of criminals that was most remarkable for constructive thinking and lucidity, ante- dating in some of its propositions any American published program of suggestions that we have found. Combe traveled extensively through the Eastern and Central portion of the United States in 1838. Of the solitary system of the Eastern Penitentiary he said: **The system of entire solitude weakens the whole nervous system. It withdraws external excitement from the animal propensities, but operates in the same manner on the organs of the moral and intellectual faculties. Social life is to these powers what an organ field is to the muscles ; it is their theatre of action, and without action there can be no vigor. Solitude, even when combined with labor and the use of books, and an occasional visit from a religious instructor, leaves the moral faculties still in a passive state, and without the means of rigorous and active exercise. ''The discipline of the Eastern Penitentiary reduces the tone of the whole nervous system to the level which is in harmony with solitude. The passions are weakened and subdued, but so are all the moral and intellectual powers. The susceptibility of the nervous system is increased, because all organs be- come susceptible in proportion to their feebleness. A weak eye is pained by light which is agreeable to a sound one. "Hence it may be quite true that religious admonitions will be deeply felt by prisoners living in solitude more than by those enjoying society; just as such instruction, when addressed to a patient recovering from a severe and debilitating illness, makes a more vivid impression than when delivered to the same individual in health. But the appearance of reformation founded on such impressions is deceitful. When the sentence has expired, the convict will return to society with all his mental powers, animal, moral and intel- lectual, increased in susceptibility but lowered in strength. The excitements that will then assail him will have their influence doubled by operating on an enfeebled system. "Convicts, after long confinement in solitude, shudder to encounter the turmoil of the world; they become excited as the day of liberation approaches, and feel bewildered when set at liberty. In short, this system is not founded on, or in harmony with, a sound knowledge of the physiology of the brain, although it appeared to me to be well administered. . . . There are advantages that go far to compensate the evils of solitude, but none to remove them."«8 82 Votes of Assembly, 1841-42, p. 191. «« Votes of Assembly, 1841-42, p. 191. 198 History of American Prisons We find in George Combe an astute student of humanity, in an age when phrenology occupied a respectable position among the *' sciences," a precursor of the psychologists and the psychiatrist of to-day, evolving some theories of prison discipline far in advance of the practice of the time. Combe certainly should not be over- looked, in our tracing backward to discover the birth and develop- ment of the theory of the indeterminate sentence, and of the theory that incorrigible criminals should be permanently detained in custody. For, as early as 1839, Combe had arrived at the belief that **the necessity for an asylum for convicts, intermediate between the prison and society, while the present system of treatment is pursued, is obvious. . . . All American prisons that I have seen are lamentably deficient in arrangements for exercising the moral and intellectual faculties of their in- mates. During the hours of labor, no advance can be made. After the hours of labor, he is locked in his cell in solitude, and I doubt much if he can read, for want of light; but assuming that he can, reading is a very imperfect means of strengthening the moral powers. They must be exercised, trained and habituated to action. ** There should be a teacher of high moral and intellectual power for every eight to ten convicts. These teachers should go to work on the convicts after the close of labor. In proportion as the prisoners give proof of moral and intellectual advancement, they should be indulged with the liberty of social converse and action for a certain time each week-day, and on Sunday, in the presence of the teacher; and in these conversations or evening parties, they should be trained to the use of their highest powers and trained to restrain their propensities. Every indication of over-active propensity should be visited by a restriction of liberty and enjoyment. . . . These advan- tages should be increased in exact proportion to the advancement of the convicts in morality and understanding. "By such means, if any, would the convicts be prepared to enter society . . . so trained as to give them a chance of resisting temptation, and continuing in the paths of virtue. . . . In no country has the idea yet been carried into effect, that in order to produce moral fruits, it is necessary to put into action moral influences, great and powerful in proportion to the barrenness of the soil from which they are expected to spring ' ' ^ The deep significance of the above passage is, that there is therein clearly recommended a most modern principle in the treat- ment of the prisoner, namely, the growth toward reformation and reclamation through the opportunity for self-expression within prison walls. It was Mr. Osborne who made current the expression : * * Only through freedom can the prisoner become fit for freedom, ' ' and the Mutual Welfare League, despite its failures, did at Auburn and Sing Sing prisons manifest the truth of the theory that not only the individual treatment of the prisoner by the prison authori- ties, but the self-expression of the individual prisoner, are essential parts of a modern prison program. And here was Combe, in an age that extolled a Lynds, and a Pilsbury, who were mainly repres- sionists, proclaiming that such a system was fundamentally unsound. Surely, an interesting phenomenon — one rising before its time, and failing to prevail, because the world had not caught up to it. 3* Combe. Notes on United States, Vol. II, p. 18. / History of American Prisons 199 Other passages from Combe's works are equally prophetic, as in the following foreshadowing of a system of indeterminate sentence and parole : *'How should we treat criminals? (He is here speaking of a class that to- day we should call perhaps moral imbeciles.) They should be placed in penitentiaries, and be prevented from abusing their faculties, yet be hu- manely treated, and permitted to enjoy comfort and as much liberty as they could sustain, without injuring themselves or their fellowmen. . . . If by long restraint and moral training and instruction they should ever be- come capable of self-guidance, they should be viewed as patients who have recovered, and be liberated, on the understanding that if they should relapse into immoral habits they should be restored to their places in the asylum. ' ' " Phrenologists have long proclaimed that the great cause of the incor- rigibility of criminals is the active predominance of the organ of the animal propensities over those of the moral and intellectual faculties, and that this .class of persons is really composed of moral patients, who should be re- strained but not otherwise punished, during life. ^* In view of social protection, any individual who has been convicted of infringing the criminal law. should be handed over, as a moral patient, to the managers of a well-regulated penitentiary, to be confined in it, not until he shall have endured a certain amount of suffering, equal in magnitude to what is supposed to be a fair revenge for his offense, but until such change shall have been effected in his mental condition as may afford society a rea- sonable guarantee that he will not commit fresh crimes when he is set at liberty. This course of treatment would be humanity itself to the offender, compared with the present system, while it would unspeakably benefit society. It would convert our prisons from houses of retribution and corruption into schools of reform. It would require, however, an entire change in the prin- ciples in which they are conducted. " There is far greater humanity in a sentence for a first offense that shall reform the culprit, although the offense itself may be small, and the con- finement long, than in one decreeing punishment for a few days only, pro- portional solely to the amount of the crime. ^ There is something almost uncanny in finding the above sporadic utterances of Combe appearing suddenly in a period far removed still from the development in this country of the indeterminate sentence for adults. Such propositions as above quoted, if pre- sented to-day with emphasis before many a convention of women's clubs or even before specialized workers in delinquency, would be heartily applauded, and regarded as timely and progressive. Yet Combe affected apparently not at all the general course of prison treatment in our country. He was undoubtedly regarded as an example, in that day, of the ''high-brow'' of today, who often enunciates a perfectly sound theory, one ultimately to be proved by usage, only to be ignored in his time because practical men say that it ''simply can't be done." When what is often meant is, that the "high-brow" couldn't do it, and they won't try. Here and there in this country, sporadic statements were being made, indicating an advanced conception of the social possibilities »« Combe. Moral Philosophy. Ed. 1863, p. 202. ^Notes on United States, p. 9. 87 Moral Philosophy, p. 222. 88 Same, p. 224. \ 200 History of American Prisons of a prison. Doctor Charles Caldwell stated in a course of lectures on "Physical Education" in Lexington, Kentucky in 1833, that "When established on correct principles, and skillfully administered, penitentiaries and houses of correction are moral hospitals, where criminal propensities are treated as diseases, consisting in unsound conditions of the brain. ' ' But Combe went even farther than has been quoted by us hitherto. He advocated practically a straight-out treatment of the criminal by a kind of indeterminate sentence, administered by a form of court. In a chapter of his ''Moral Philosophy," entitled ' ' On the Treatment of Crime, ' ' he wrote : "If the principle which I advocate shall ever be adopted, the sentence of the criminal judge, on conviction of a crime, would simply be one finding that the individual had committed a certain offense, and was not fit to live in society; and, therefore, granting warrant for his transmission to a peni- tentiary, to be there confined, instructed and employed, until liberated in due course of law. "The process of liberation would then become one of the greatest im- portance. There should be official inspectors of penitentiaries, invested with some of the powers of a court, sitting at regular intervals, and proceeding according to fixed rules. They should be authorized to receive applications for liberation at all their sessions, and to grant the prayer of them on being satisfied that such a thorough change had been effected in the mental con- dition of the prisoner, that he might safely be permitted to resume his place in society. "Until this conviction was produced upon examination of his disposition, of his attainments in knowledge, of his acquired skill in some useful em- ployment, of his habits of industry, and, in short, of his general qualifications to provide for his own support, to restrain his animal propensities from com- mitting abuses, and to act the part of a useful citizen, he should be retained as an inmate of a penitentiary. "Perhaps some individuals, whose dispositions appeared favorable to reformation, might be liberated at an earlier period on sufficient security, under bond, given by responsible relatives or friends, for the discharge of the same duties toward them in private which the officers of the penitentiary would discharge in public. For example, if a youth were to commit such an offense as would subject him, according to the present system of criminal legislation, to two or three months' confinement in Bridewell, he might be handed over to individuals of undoubted good character and substance, under a bond that they should be answerable for his proper education, employment and reformation; and fulfillment of the obligation should be very rigidly enforced. "The principle of revenge being disavowed and abandoned, there could be no harm in following any mode of treatment, whether private or public, that should be adequate to the accomplishment of the other two objects of crim- inal legislation — the protection of society and the reformation of the offender. "To prevent abuses of this practice, the public authorities should carefully ascertain that the natural qualities of the offender admitted of adequate improvement by private treatment; and, secondly, that private discipline was actually administered. If any offender, liberated on bond, should ever re- appear as a criminal, the penalty should be inexorably enforced, and the culprit should never again be liberated, except upon a verdict finding that his reformation had been completed by a proper system of training in a penitentiary. ' ' The above paragraphs by Combe were presented to students of American prison management in a volume entitled : ' ' Rationale of Crime," with notes and illustrations by Mrs. E. W. Farnham, the History of American Prisons 201 matron of Mount Pleasant Prison, in 1846. In short, the theory of the indeterminate sentence, of parole, and subsequent retreat- ment of the offending person on ''parole,'* or rather, its proposed equivalent of the time, were all thus spread before the American students of prison matters in 1846 — but it was thirty years before the opening of Elmira Reformatory, and in the State prisons of the time no change resulted from this presentation, by an enlight- ened ''prison woman," of a really great penological thinker of his time. Even the phraseology of Combe often brings to us the very phrases to-day in common use, and many a parole board, now sitting in State prison or reformatory, would listen to the repetition of Combe's theorizing, not knowing its origin, and pronounce the proposition: "Exactly what is now being done by us!" We turn from Combe to a study of the industries under the new system at the new prison of New Jersey. The prison, after a few years, made a very creditable industrial showing. By 1841, the governor could report the prison out of debt, with a small surplus. The yearly deficits or surplus earnings were as follows : Years Earnings Expenses Deficit Surpliis 1825-1829 $97,995 $77,347 ■t$5.i94 *512 *$20,648 1836-1839 1840 1841 *1,272 1842 *4,278 1843 *2,969 1844 *4,709 * Exclusive of salaries, t Inclusive of salaries. The greatly increased productivity of the prison was due in part at least to the policy of keeping the prisoners, for purposes of both health and industry, steadily employed in their cells. In 1844, the principal keeper reported that *' under our system no great degree of health can be maintained without regu- lar employment. This, with proper attention to cleanliness, wholesome diet and judicious treatment, appears to be all that is necessary, except in a few isolated cases, to ensure general good health. ' ' ^ The activities of the prison industries appear from the keeper's statement in 1844: Earnings. Weaving $2,441 75 Cordwaining 2,261 57 Chair making 5,105 08 Sundries 757 10 Expenses. Furniture .. Provisions . Hospital .... Fuel Incidentals Interest $929 14 4,183 46 176 79 1,432 08 857 31 16 92 ——————— 7 595 70 $10,056 50 Net gain $2*969 90 Salaries, as well as expenses of repairs and improvements, were paid not out of the earnings of the prison, but from the State «» CouncD, 18^4, p. 29. 202 History of American Prisons treasury. So far as possible, the prison aimed to employ the prisoners at contract labor, but opposed the entrance of the con- tractor, through his agents, into the prison. A picture of the prison population is given in the report of the inspectors for 1844 : Length of Sentences. 7 years 2 years 3 years 24 years 13 years 23 yrs. 6 mos 6 2 years 1 yr. 6 mos. 30 12 1 yr. 3 mos 1 1 year 9 months 6 months 19 1 1 Life 1 20 years 1 15 years 3 14 years 1 12 years 1 10 years 9 8 years 3 Year Eeeeived into Prison. 1837 2 prisoners 1841 9 prisoners 1838 1 prisoner 1842 19 prisoners 1839 3 prisoners 1843 58 prisoners 1840 6 prisoners 1844 61 prisoners The above statistical statement, showing no prisoner at the prison who had been admitted more than eight years previously, indicates clearly the custom of pardoning prisoners by the end of from six to eight years, even if such prisoners had been committed for very long terms, or even for life. Harriet Martineau, a very observant traveler in the United States in the ** thirties, ' ' stated that every one of the prisoners whom she conversed with in the Eastern Penitentiary was in anxious expectation of a pardon. **A sentence to life imprisonment is generally understood to mean im- prisonment for a shorter term than if 10 to 7 years had been named."*" The subjoined table shows additional significant statistics of the same period of the New Jersey Prison : ' Convictions. Ages. First 131 10-20 22 20-30 74 30-40 38 40-50 16 50-60 7 60-70 2 The above figures are to be taken with many grains of salt, as to their accuracy. The statements of convicts as to age, previous convictions, habits and the like, have always been fairly unreliable. The statements are colored by various motives and in general, as can be readily understood, the convict is not prone to confess earlier convictions. Therefore, the first column, as to previous convictions, is hardly to be regarded as accurate. The probabilities are that the number of first convictions, in New Jersey or in other States, was much smaller than was given. Apparently the attitude of the board of inspectors and of the warden, at the end of the period we have now under consideration, was humane and benevolent. The inspectors recommended shorter sentences, fully executed, and they vigorously opposed the practice *o Society in America, Vol. II, p. 288. Kace. White 98 Second 21 Third 6 Fourth 1 Colored. Male .... Female History of American Prisons 203 of granting pardons. Punishment, they maintained, must be cer- tain in order to be effective. The warden (known as the *' Keeper'* or '* Principal Keeper") stated that no human being could ever be reformed by brutal treatment. An over-stint was put into opera- tion. Men in the past, claimed the keeper, had been wronged out of their earnings. He laid emphasis upon the greater importance in the prison of moral reformation than of great profits.*^ The attitude of the inspectors toward some payment to the pris- oners for their work, even though in the form of a bonus for extra work, was indicative of a changing sentiment in this period among enlightened prison reformers. In earlier decades, the prison execu- tives had opposed the *' over-stint " because of its application by prisoners to contraband articles and to the corruption of officers. But in time it became clear that within the prison as well as outside of it there must be a potent economic or moral stimulus. This insight led Dorothea Dix to write in 1845 of American prisons : ^^ **The best mode of aiding convicts is, so to apportion their tasks in prison as to give to the industrious the opportunity of earning a sum for themselves by * overwork. ' A man usually values that most for which he has labored; he uses that most frugally which he has toiled hour by hour and day by day to acquire. I believe every convict will be disposed to make a better use of the money he earns than of that he receives gratuitously. . . . Indulged habits of dependence create habits of indolence, and indolence opens the portals to . . . vice and crime." It was homely and, to our minds of to-day, self-evident truths that the prison executives and prison reformers were learning in these formative years of the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems. They were new to them, and were dilated upon in the cogent and expressive language of the day. For those prisoners who had proved worthy in the prison, the inspectors recommended the passage of a law restoring citizenship rights, which had been forfeited upon conviction. A library was installed by means of a State appropriation of $100, and the books, of religious, historical and miscellaneous nature, were distributed regularly to the prisoners during the year. *^ Reports of Inspectors and Keeper, 1844. *2 Dix. Remarks, p. 11. CHAPTER XVII MARYLAND When the Englishman, Crawford, visited the Maryland State Penitentiary in 1832, he wrote that it was remarkable for nothing more than the profits arising from its manufacture.^ And, in truth, the Baltimore institution developed in the period between 1832 and 1837 into a very productive factory, ultimately possessing shops that the French official visitor, Blouet, described as the best he had seen in any American prison.^ Directors and officials were chosen because of, the industrial capacity. ' ' Product ' ' was almost the sole ambition of the administration. The older prisoners taught the newcomers the prescribed trades. The Boston Prison Discipline Society early cited the Maryland Penitentiary as the most produc- tive in the country ^ — a high compliment in a period when prisons that failed to be self-supporting were regarded as partial failures. As in the case of the earliest State prisons in other Eastern States, the State prison of Maryland was organized almost entirely on the basis and methods of the humane Walnut Street Prison. The high reputation of the Pennsylvania institution led the Mary- land Legislature in 1804 to provide for the erection of a State prison. In 1809 a further law established in detail the government of the prison, modeled on the daily routine of Walnut Street.^ Prisoners were, for instance, to be kept in solitary confinement for from one-half to one-twentieth of their sentence. As in Philadel- phia, they were to labor every day in the year, save Sunday and Christmas Day, or when under punishment, the hours being 8 in November, December and January, 9 in February and October, and 10 during the rest of the year. Even the separate labor account for each prisoner, initiated in the Philadelphia prison, was em- bodied in the Maryland law. Prisoners suffering from ''any acute or dangerous distemper" at time of discharge might be held until sufficiently cured. On admission, the prisoner was to be washed, cleaned, and segregated until regarded as fit to be received among the other prisoners. In short, the enlightened principles of the first reform movement were copied in Maryland law. Nevertheless, the Baltimore prison appears only infrequently in its early history to have striven for the reformation of its inmates. Crawford found that the prisoners were liable to be flogged for a breach of the regulations, and at the pleasure of the underkeepers, as at Auburn, without requiring previous notice to the warden.^ Imprisonment, said Crawford, was very far from 1 Crawford, p. 22. 2De Metz and Blouet, p. 24. s B. P. D. S., 1829, p. 264. * Acts of Ass., etc., respecting the Penitentiary of Maryland, 1819, p. 5. 8 Crawford, p. 22. [204] History of American Prisons 205 having any tendency to diminish crime. Blouet found that prison- ers who had not completed their tasks at the end of the day were severely punished, and could not enjoy any earnings through ** over-stint/ ' until they should have caught up, through such over- stints, with their regularly assigned daily tasks. However, on Christmas Day the slate was wiped clean for those who had fallen behind in their industry, and a new account was opened.^ As an intensive manufacturing center, in which any real welfare of prisoners was subordinated to profits, the Maryland penitentiary had a varied career in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The prison was opened in 1812 ^ in the city of Baltimore, three- fourths of a mile from the center of the city,*^ with a wall-enclosed area of about four acres, and at a cost of $196,000. In the opening month, 51 convicts were removed to the penitentiary from the public roads, to serve the remainder of their sentence therein.* Like other prison buildings of this period, this prison, 156 feet long and 36 feet wide, contained large night-rooms, 36 in number, holding from 7 to 10 inmates each. In time, the same demoralization developed out of these promis- cuous dormitories that led in the other States to the downfall of the first penitentiary system. A female department with 6 rooms occupied the southern end of the second story of the prison, and 9 solitary cells, for punishment purposes, were in the northern end of the third story. These were the conditions found when the Boston Prison Discipline Society began to issue its annual reports on American prisons in 1826. By January, 1825, the convict population numbered 307, of which 62 were females ; of the 245 males, 93 were colored, and almost all the women prisoners were negroes. Sentences ranged from 3 months to 21 years.^ The principal industry of the male prisoners was weaving, carried on by the State, and not by contractors. The sun-to-sun labor of the prisoners on week days was broken on the Sabbath by religious instruction by Methodist clergymen, morning and evening, and by a Sabbath School that taught also the three R^s. A very human touch entered into the industrial history of the institution when, in 1822, Mrs. Perijo was appointed matron of the female department ^^ — a section of the prison heretofore, as in other prisons, in charge of a male keeper. Mrs. Perijo was, in her way, an Elizabeth Fry, for she dominated the vicious and debauched women prisoners by kindness and common sense, turned an average annual deficit of $1,099 into an average surplus of $492, and in addition organized educational classes in the three R's, besides teaching the women simple industries and completely changing the discipline and morale of her department. She is the first prison matron of whom we have found record, and like the early peniten- tiary system in Philadelphia, she also set the standard high from the outset. « De Metz and Blouet, p. 24. ' B. P. D. S.. 1827, p. 120. * Crawford, App. 94. • B. P. D. S.. 1827, p. 120. 10 B. P. D., S., 1836, p. 34. 206 History op American Prisons The prison was distinctly a going concern in 1828, in which year the earnings exceeded the expenses by $9,804, not including $3,522 repaid on account of loans.^^ During the five previous years the earnings had been large, and the penitentiary in 1829 had an active capital of $76,927, principally earnings. In 1828, the female department, under Mrs. Perijo, had earned $1,355 net. In 1829, affected by the strong influences of the Auburn system^ and by the obvious failure of the prevailing system to maintain discipline, and to be anything but a nursery of crime, ^^ the State erected a new prison building, containing 320 separate cells. It i» significant that this building, though constructed on the ''arcade plan" (with a central corridor), and with cells facing the corridor (instead of being placed back to back, as at Auburn), drew the high praise of the Boston Prison Discipline Society,^^ which shows that the support by that society of the Auburn system was a support of Auburn methods especially of silence, separation at night and association at labor during the day, rather than an advocacy necessarily of the so-called inside cellblock which has in tradition become inseparable from the so-called Auburn system itself. In short, the vehement objections by the Boston Society to the Pennsylvania system were not to rooms abutting on a central corridor, but to rooms in which the prisoners not only slept but' worked in solitude. An interesting observation of Dorothea Dix was, relative to this^ new cellblock, that she much preferred the method of architecture which ranged the cells against the walls instead of throwing them into the center. "1 greatly prefer this arrangement, affording as it does advantages of light and air, unknown in ranges of center cells, so inconvenient and tomb- like in construction as all those are. ' ' " The new cellhouse, 5 stories high, contained a central passage 15 feet wide, open from the first floor to the roof. Galleries fronted each row of cells above the first floor. The cells were 6 feet 6 inches^ in length, 3 feet 7 inches wide, and 7 feet high.^^ In each cell a glazed window, 3 feet high and 4 inches in breadth on the outer surface, broadening to 12 inches on the inner surface of the external wall of the cell, gave light and air. The cells had iron-grated doors — which led to difficulties, because of ready verbal communication between prisoners on opposite sides of the corridors. Although much nearer topographically to Philadelphia than to Auburn, Maryland adopted the Auburn system, because a com- mittee of the board of directors of the penitentiary had reported, after visiting several prisons in Pennsylvania and New York in 1828, that the Pennsylvania system was expensive in construction,, presented difficulties in the supply of food and exercise, and fur- 11 Jol. House of Delegates, 1822, p. 139. « B. P. D. S., 1829, p. 264, 304, 324. " Dix. Remarks, p. 47. " Crawford. App., p. 94. History of American Prisons 207 nished no mental occupation (this latter opinion being based on the earlier plan of solitary confinement without labor at the Eastern Penitentiary.)" With the advent of the new building, the Auburn system was put into operation, but far less rigidly than in the parent institution. Indeed, an educational development of significance occurred, in the establishment of a general system of instruction of all convicts. All parts of the Sabbath Day not devoted to religious interests were devoted to secular study. From this mental occupation throughout the Sabbath resulted, according to the report of the prison board," *^the entire destruction of the improper indulgences and corrupt association, to which exemption from labor on Sunday afforded them more opportunity than on any other day.'^ On week days also, the convicts were allowed to read and study, ** after perform- ing an amount of labor commensurate with the cost of their support. ' ' The board reported as follows : '* Convicts are not only capable of intellectual culture, but they gladly resort to the means of instruction . . . which incites to greater industry. Since the institution of our school, there has been less vice and immorality, and the aspect of the prisoners has been greatly improved. . . . We are confident that the only plan for effectuating the design of penal law is to blend productive labor with useful education." This was an extremely modern statement for the period, and indeed, the Maryland penitentiary seemingly led the way in the extent of the scholastic education given to the inmates, among the prisons of the period." This educational project lasted for several years. In 1833, there were 211 convicts in the Sabbath School who had originally been unable to read or write,^^ instructed by 10 volunteer teachers from the city. The colored convicts were especially appreciative of the school. Crawford found in 1832 that the disciplinary measures of the prison were relatively rigorous. The lock-step was used in march- ing the prisoners in mass ; there was the customary requirement of silence, and all heads must face in the same direction. Flogging was allowed as a punishment. The prisoners were shaved on one side of the head, which the Boston Prison Discipline Society reported in 1838 was *' revolting, ' ' and not found in any other prison. The hair was thus half -shaven, until three weeks before the prisoner was to be discharged. Nevertheless, the prisoners were able to communicate with each other, and sometimes the males with the females. Punishments were solitary confinement, or whipping, or both. Ordinarily five lashes, there could be given as many as 13, or 13 repeatedly. Solitary confinement was seldom for more than 10 or 12 days. The prisoners were never chained, shackled or fettered except for attempts to escape. Then a small yoke was worn about the neck. ^"5 Report of Committee appointed by Boaxd of Directors of Maryland Penitentiary. 1828. p. 8. " B. P. D. S.. 1831. p. 504. " B. P. D. S., p. 504. " B. P. D. S., 1833. p. 620. 208 History of American Prisons The prison garb was of black and white alternate stripes, the material cotton and wool. The stripes were about one inch wide. The prison had a hospital, a room 45 feet square, with cast-iron beds, and a small room used for cooking. The physician visited the prison nearly every morning. Two convicts acted as nurses. The convalescent patients could take the air, and exercise in the long corridor. Each new patient was vaccinated, and if the small- pox scare developed, the whole prison population. Insane patients^ were not removed to a hospital outside the prison. If they had not recovered by the expiration of their sentences, they might be retained at the prison. Meanwhile, through the thirties, the industrial condition of the prison fluctuated seriously. In 1837 and 1838 there was a general derangement and prostration of the trade of the country.^^ The expenses over earnings of the prison were $16,934. Under the old law of 1817, an agent or storekeeper had been appointed to market the goods manufactured by the penitentiary through a store rented in Baltimore. It was ultimately found that it was impossible ta compete with the commission merchants of the city on even terms, and so the prison was forced to sell to these same commission mer- chants at a discount exceeding the expense of rent of the store, and of the salaries of the agent and his assistant. In 1835 or there- abouts, the store was abandoned; the direct sales to commission merchants continued.^" However, discontent among the '^mechanics'* was brewing, and 1,300 citizens of Baltimore petitioned the House of Delegates in 1838 for the abolition of the penitentiary system, so far as it conflicted with the interest of mechanics.^^ In 1842, the directors- of the penitentiary sent a special committee to study the industrial methods and problems of other Eastern prisons. The committee reported that the branches then conducted in the Maryland peni- tentiary did not conflict with the interests of local mechanics, while on the other hand nearly paying expenses. Vigorously opposing^ any introduction of the contract labor system into the Baltimore prison, the committee said, speaking of the labor troubles in New York: *'In this manner the State of New York has unguardedly created a priv- ileged class in the community, and thereby established a principle particu- larly odious and intolerable to the mind and feelings of the people. . . . Articles furnished to the market (by the Maryland penitentiary) should be restricted to those classes that belong to the widest range of trade. In the main the articles produced are work of a kind not usually engaged in by citizens of the State. ''^^ The end of the period we have been considering found, therefore, the prison in a serious industrial condition. Its earlier prosperous days were no more. From 1822 to 1839 it had operated so success- fully that it had received no State aid, save appropriations for the salaries of officers, which were defrayed until 1828. From then on, " B. p. D. S., 1839, p. 356. » Report of Select Committee on the Penitentiary, 1836, p. 5. 21J0I. House of Delegates, 1836, p. 195. 22 Report of Committee on Prison Manufactures, 1842, p. 13. History of American Prisons 209 until 1838, the penitentiary met all its expenses of $69,215. It manufactured almost exclusively cotton and woolen cloth, which had a constant sale, with large profits. The mercantile crisis in 1837 brought serious depreciation in prices, and since then there had continued to be a gradual price depreciation, particularly in articles manufactured by hand-looms. On the other hand, it was now, in 1842, apparently impracticable to further develop other branches in the penitentiary. Losses since 1838 had totalled $46,000. There was a diminution in the number of convicts being committed to the prison — and the ''honest mechanic" was objecting impressively to the competition of prison- made goods in the open market.^ ^ Report of the Committee on Manufactures, 1842, pp. 4-5. CHAPTER XVIII VIRGINIA That the State of Virginia, the ''Mother of Presidents," should have built her State prison mainly according to plans furnished by Thomas Jefferson, when he was ambassador to France, is an inter- esting penological fact. Jefferson learned, while in Paris, of the novel plans of a French architect for a *' well-contrived edifice on the solitary plan. ' ' ^ The drawings that Jefferson procured being too large, he redrew them on a smaller scale, and sent the plans to Virginia to those directors who had been commissioned by the Legislature to build the State Capitol and to devise a State prison plan.^ Thomas Jefferson had become sincerely interested, as early as 1776, in the reform of the criminal laws of Virginia. In a com- mittee of the Legislature of that year, the drafting of a new criminal code fell to him. The committee agreed that the death penalty should be abolished except for treason and murder, and that for other felonies there should be established hard labor on the public works, and in some cases the lex talionis. **How this revolting principle came to obtain our approbation I do not remem- ber," wrote Jefferson. In 1785, the proposed code almost passed the House of Delegates, being beaten by only a solitary vote, the public rage against horse thievery killing the bill. **In America the inhabitants let their horses go at large in the enclosed lands, which are so extensive as to maintain them together. It is easy, there- fore, to steal them and easy to escape. Therefore the laws are obliged to oppose these temptations with a heavier degree of punishment. For this reason the stealing of a horse is punished more severely than stealing the same value in any other form. ' "^ In 1796, the Legislature resumed the subject of a revision of criminal law and prison discipline, revised the penal laws after the model of Pennsylvania, and adopted solitary instead of public labor, as well as establishing a gradation in the duration of confinement.* The prison, begun in 1796 in Richmond, received its first prisoners in 1800. Its construction was unlike that of any other prison in this country. It was located on a high hill, about one mile south-west of the State House, and about two miles west of the James River .^ The cells were arranged in a brick building in the form of a crescent, two stories above the basement.^ The cells were 12 feet 1 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 1, p. 58. 2 Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 4, p. 158. 8 Pettigrove, in " Correction and Prevention. Vol. II, p. 30. * Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. I, p. 64. (Edition edited by P. L. Ford, Putman's.) s B. P. D. S.. 1827, p. 128. [210] History of American Prisons 211 long, 614 feet wide, and 9 feet high, with arched ceilings.^ It ia fair to infer from the size of the cells that it was originally in- tended, as Jefferson indicated, that each prisoner should labor in solitude in his cell. Not only did this not occur, but within five years of the opening of the prison, three or four prisoners were already being lodged together, and the evils of conspiracies, immorality, and mutual teaching of crime were already flourishing/ Not until after 1823, when a disastrous fire caused necessary renovations to the prison building, were separate cells in sufficient numbers provided. In 1823, a Legislative committee reported that it was surprising that so few of the convicts died, when one reflected that they were almost totally deprived of healthy air, and literally crowded together at night in close and small rooms.^ A year later, the directors reported that the Virginia penitentiary was so con- structed as to permit unrestrained intercourse among the prisoner* day and night. '^It was both a prison and a workshop, in which the convicts worked in groups and slept in clusters. ' ' ^ The Virginia * * Jail and Penitentiary House ' ' was both in location and construction a monumental blunder, which resulted in not only permanent and serious difficulties of administration, but in disease and death to the inmates. Established with high hopes of reformatory influences,^" the prison was so located as to be later the center of an obnoxious, if not noxious atmosphere. The prison was thus described by a new and horrified superintendent^ C. S. Morgan, in 1832:^^ *'The penitentiary is situated on an eminence between two rivers, that come together and empty into a canal, on the margin of the James Eiver, into which all the filth of the prison and the western part of the city of Eichmond is carried and deposited. This deposit increases annually, and i» less than 200 yards from the prison buildings, and the river less than 40O yards. During the summer the water remains stagnant and full of putrid matter. The whole mass constantly casts off offensive miasma, wafted throughout the prison. . . . How could the Legislature devise a scheme of punishment more dreadful to the human mind, or less qualified to reform the moral condition of the offender?*' Morgan found over a dozen cells or dungeons designed for soli- tary confinement; these cells were dark, damp and underground. He found — a custom descending from the initial law of 1798 — that the inmates served a considerable portion of their sentences in such solitary confinement. The prison itself was so damp at times that moisture coagulated upon the walls, ^^ and there was no method of heating any of the cells. Prisoners' feet had been frozen while in solitary confinement in the cells. These cells had been pro- nounced by Superintendent Morgan's predecessor. Superintendent Samuel L. Parsons, a Quaker originally from Philadelphia, imminently dangerous to health and sometimes to life. There were, according to Parsons, comparatively few prisoners whose constitu- * Crawford. App. ' Jol. House of Delegates, 1805, p. 90. * .Tol. House of Delegates, 1823, Report of Penitentiary Coram. ».Tol. House of Delegates, 1823-24, Report of Directors, p. 31. 10 Preamble to Amendment to Penal Laws, 1798. " Report of Superintendent, Jol. House of Delegates, 1832-33, Document 1. "B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 168. 212 History of American Prisons tions were not injured by them. The ordinary cells in the first and second story were light and airy, but not warmed, and were exposed on two sides to the cold. Before the alterations of 1824, even these cells had been dark and close. To equip the prison with a heating system always seemed a prohibitive expense. The design of the prison made the proper inspection by keepers almost impossible. The cell doors were of wood, preventing inspec- tion at night. Yet prisoners could always communicate with each other. In winter, since both ends of the cell were exposed to the air, there was no convenient place for a sentinel to pass the night near the cells.^^ In 1824, for the first time, a wall was built around the prison, some 20 feet high, to prevent escapes. This resulted in a most serious interruption to the circulation of air throughout the buildings. In 1834, it was said by Superintendent Morgan that *' whether the prison be viewed as a mere engine of torture for offenses com- mitted, or whether of terror to prevent crime, or whether it be viewed as a school to reform felons, or a manufacturing establishment to extract from the vicious the means to defray the expenses of their own punishment, humanity and the public interest alike demand a thorough examination and removal of the causes of misery, disease and mortality."" Throughout its early history, the Virginia penitentiary had there- fore a large death rate, which sometimes became appalling. Imprisonment within the limits of 100 yards square, and the causes above mentioned, had brought to the prison by Morgan's time a prevalence of disease that caused each prisoner, on the average, to be incarcerated in the hospital several times a year. The following was the death record from 1800 to 1832 : Period Prisoners received Prisoners died Per cent died 1800-1810 450 603 625 88 22 58 163 68 5 1810-1820 10 1821-1830 26 1831-1832 77 The appalling climax was reached in 1832, when 39 prisoners were received and 47 prisoners died. It was, however, in this year that the cholera raged in the prison, with 147 cases, of which 27 terminated fatally. Morgan knocked great windows into the outside walls, built a respectable hospital, and succeeded in getting the Legislature mate- rially to lessen the periods of solitary confinement. The results were as follows : ^^ Proportion of Deaths to Population. 1800 to 1824, at which time the high outer wall was built-. 1 to 10.5 1825 to 1833, during which the high wall stood 1 to 3.7 1834 to 1839 1 to 12.7 " Jol. House of Delegates, 1832-33, Document 1. 1* B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 129. " Jol. House of Delegates, 1838-1839, Document 1, Superintendent's Report. History of American Prisons 213 There were, of course, other serious factors contributing to the high death rate of this institution. The inhumanly long periods of solitary confinement played a leading role in this tragedy. The law of 1796 provided — as did the Pennsylvania law — that each convict should pass not more than one-half nor less than one- twelfth of his sentence in solitary confinement. Whereas other States in general did not put this law into very serious effect, Virginia adhered to it with horrible fidelity, particularly during the long superintendency of Mr. Parsons. By law, the first six months were passed in a dark, labor-less inactivity. As the number of admissions grew, literal obedience to the solitary confinement section of the law became difficult. In 1815, Superintendent Par- sons, recently appointed, advocated the abrogation of the law, because it could not be carried into effect, there being then only 6 solitary cells available.^^ The law, however, was not amended, and in 1824 Mr. Parsons stated that the lives of most of these prisoners, doomed to 6 months of uninterrupted and dark solitary confinement, were in imminent danger.^^ The solitary confinement law was nevertheless rigidly enforced. At this time there was coupled therewith, as a severe depressant of hope in the prisoner's breast, an equally rigid enforcement of the law prohibiting the Governor from granting pardons. The hope of pardon had been in the earliest days of the Virginia institu- tion an instrument leading to good conduct and a fair degree of health. We have already seen, in States like New York and Pennsylvania, to what an excessively liberal extent the chief execu- tives of the States had exercised their demoralizing prerogative of pardon. Prison lost its terror and justice her power, in the eyes of the public, when criminals so easily regained their liberty. Therefore, in spite of the obvious tendency of the hope of pardon to stimulate the prisoner to good work^^ and good conduct, the power of pardon was through many years exercised with far too great liberality," and in 1823 the Executive was deprived of the power of pardon. In 1825, Superintendent Parsons traced the high mortality of the prison partly to the mental despair of the prisoner, cut off from hope of mercy, and doomed to serve the entire period of his sentence, with the required solitary confinement, but without the hope of executive clemency. Mr. Parsons reported : '* Whenever a convict sentenced for life has been seriously attacked by disease, he has sunk under it. There has not been a single instance where a convict, whose sentence was for life, ever recovered from indisposition. . . . Nothing has presented itself more destructive to the health and con- stitution of the convict than the six months' close and uninterrupted solitary confinement upon first reception. . . .*'^ Parsons recommended the shortening of the period of solitary confinement on reception and the repetition of three months of solitary confinement immediately preceding the convict 's discharge. " Jol. House of Delegates, 1816, App. " Jol. House of Delegates, 1824-25, Governor's Message, App. 5. " Jol. House of Delegates, Governor's Message, 1807. " Jol. House of Delegates, 1822-23. Report of Pen. Comm. 20 Jol. House of Delegates, 1825-26, App., Superintendent's Report, p. 5. 214 History of American Prisons The prison physician stated that the low diet (bread and water) in solitary confinement during six months produced scurvy and debili- tated the system so that a prisoner hardly ever recovered from it» effects. Apparently to offset the high death rate, he recommended that the sixth months' solitary confinement be at the close of the convict's term! Should the prisoner die afterwards, he would no longer be in prison! In 1826 the Legislature lessened the initial period of solitary confinement to three months, and added a three months' period at the conclusion of the convict's term, which should be the bitter * * crack of the whip, ' ' that would warn the convict never to commit crime again. In 1832, the Legislative committee advocated the entire abandonment of solitary confinement at the end of the prisoner's sentence. There was no substantial benefit from it. It was injurious to health. It obliterated habits of industry acquired in prison, and abstracted the best time and labor of the convicts.^^ In 1833, the law was amended to provide that the amount of time passed, by sentence, in solitary confinement should not exceed one- twelfth of the entire sentence, and should not exceed one month at any time.^ Morgan, the new superintendent, was opposed to soli- tary confinement at all, save for punishment for violation of prison rules. Each convict was now placed in solitary confinement for one week in each six months, and for an entire month during the last year of his term.^ This reduced the total number of days of soli- tary confinement in 1835 to 2,719, as against 3,695 in the previous- year.^* In 1838, the Governor urged further decrease of such punishment, and in some cases its entire abolition. By 1840, the solitary confinement record for the year totalled only 399 days, about a tenth of what it was in 1834.^^^ We have presented in really gruesome detail the above only too gradual mitigation of solitary confinement in Virginia because it illustrates more graphically than we have found in any other State not only the cruelty, horror and danger to life of the practice^ but also its futility. When prisoners were decreasingly subject to long periods of such treatment — and when the prison was ulti- mately ''aired out" — health increased, and the annual mortality rate went down. But, at its lowest rate, the Virginia penitentiary still occupied a notorious place among American prisons. Super- intendent Parsons claimed in 1829 that the high death rate in the Virginia penitentiary was due in recent years to ill health because of the cessation of pardons.^^ However, a comparison of the Virginia prison and the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield destroys the superintendent's argument, for in Connecticut also there was no exercise of executive clemency, and the pardonings of the Legislature were very infrequent. 21 Jol. House of Delegates, 1832-33, Document 30. 22 Jol. House of Delegates, 1833-34, Governor's Message, Document 1, p. 128. 28 Jol. House of Delegates, 1834-35, Document 7. 2* Jol. House of Delegates, 1835-36, Document 7. 28 Jol. House of Delegates, 1840-41, Document 9. » Jol. House of Delegates, 1828-29, App.. p. 6. History of American Prisons 215 Indeed, it is very difficult to find in the entire course of the administration of the Virginia penitentiary during the period from 1800 to 1844 any evidence of an enduring humanitarian effort to reform, or even to deal with prisoners according to the best prin- ciples of penal justice of the period. During the entire span of the 44 years under our study, there was no chaplain, nor were there any fairly regularly conducted Sabbath services until 1835.^ Intermittent preaching was held, when local clergymen could be obtained. No Sabbath School was established, nor was secular instruction given in the three R's, though in more northern prisons this was common. Parsons reported in 1830 that there was no room in the prison large enough to assemble convicts in, and the prison yard was used in good weather .^^ He wrote in 1826: **The sole object of American prisons is not reformation.^' The belief that through reformatory influences prisoners would be regenerated and turned out into the community good and useful citizens had produced, according to Parsons, a sickly and mistaken administra- tion of the American penitentiary system, teaching the convicts to believe that they were merely unfortunate beings (guilty of no crime), and real objects of commiseration, claiming benevolence beyond the necessities of the poor and honest members of society, who had committed no crime, and violated no law. There had been too much of a sickly and squeamish sympathy practiced in most of the prisons, wrote Parsons.^^ The prison served, therefore, two purposes. It was a place of incarceration and deterrence, and also of industrial activity. Even by 1805 it was felt that the convicts should work harder. Earnings were not meeting expenses. Because of the commingling, day and night, of the prisoners, the penitentiary had few terrors for the indigent. The prison was placed in 1806 under the sole charge of the governor of the State, and a new keeper appointed. By 1807, great industrial activity was recorded and profits of nearly $8,000. The chief occupations were boots, shoes, wrought and cut nails. A sales ageiit was appointed. For some yesirs, profits were reported. Within ten years, however, a Legislative committee reported that penitentiary institutions, * Vhen conducted upon the mild and merciful principle that led to their establishment'' could never be depended upon as sources of revenue to the State.^ The estimated budget for the fiscal years, 1818-1819 showed: DISBUESEMENTS. For raw materials $55,000 Salaries 3,400 Removing criminals to penitentiary from jail, etc 5,500 $63,900 RECEIPTS. Sale of manufactured articles • 35,000 Deficit $28,900 27 Jol. House of Delegates, 1835-36, Document 7. 28 B. P. D. S., 1830, p. 425. » Jbl. House of Delegates, 1826-27, App. 4. 80 Jol. House of Delegates, 1818-19, p. 150. 216 History of American Prisons Clearly, therefore, the profits announced by the prison in succes- sive years were on the operations of the industries, and not, as in Connecticut for instance, upon a net surplus, after all expenses of the prison including salaries of officers, had been paid. In 1817 the law was amended to provide that the Governor should appoint a board of directors, and two years later all powers for- merly vested in the Governor were vested in them, the Legislature however electing the superintendent, which often caused divided authority between them. The prison seems at no time to have been on an absolutely self- supporting basis. A comparative table presented by Superintend- ent Morgan in 1840 throws some light on the penitentiary operations: 1816-1820. Cash paid into penitentiary by State, on manufacturing account.. $255,405 34 On account of expenses to buildings 11,317 76 $266,723 10 Cash paid into State treasury by penitentiary from manufacturers 157,189 58 Deficit, 1816-1820 $109,533 52 1832-1840. Paid by State treasury for operation of penitentiary $98,332 00 Paid into State treasury by agents $51,630 00 Clothing furnished lunatic hospital 20,500 95 72,130 95 Balance against penitentiary account $26,201 05 But Other work done for State by penitentiary $32,544 25 Balance in favor of penitentiary from 1832-1840 6,343 20 $32,544 25 $32,544 25 The Virginia Penitentiary seems to have had little influence upon other States. Indeed, it had little to suggest, save that which should be avoided. Its architecture was faulty. No other prison built upon its design. It was not self-supporting. It made no feature of reformation. It could not successfully conduct a silent system, because of the construction of the prison. Its death rate was abnormal. Its solitary cells and dungeons were places of horror. It maintained no chaplain nor Sunday School. Its Sabbath chapel was at best intermittent. Its location was unsanitary. In com- parison with Auburn, Wethersfield, or the Eastern Penitentiary, it presented but a sorry figure for the State prison of the leading State of the South. CHAPTER XIX THE EASTERN PENITENTIARY OF PENNSYLVANIA 1829-1844 No prison in the United States has ever been such a storm-center in the discussion and development of prison reform as the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, which received its first prisoner on October 5th, 1829. In a previous chapter * we have described its unique architectural feature — the radial * * ranges ' ' of cells, rami- fying like seven spokes of a wheel from a common center. We have described the clearcut and definite penological principle upon which the prison was to be administered, namely, the absolute sepa- ration of all prisoners at all times from each other, with the accompanying separate industrial activity of each prisoner in his own cell. -^, As ear ly as 1837, the prison had already become famous as the chief exponent of what was now known as the ** Pennsylvania plan/ ^ both in the United States and in Europe. The prison was not only visited by representatives of other States planning to build new prisons, but was studied with especial care by delegations of official specialists from foreign countries, as Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville of France (1831), William Crawford, secretary of the London Prison Discipline Society (1832), Doctor Julius of Prussia (1835), Mondelet and Neilson of lower Canada (1834), and De Metz and Blouet from France in 1836-37. Espe- <}ially from the detailed descriptions and thoughtful criticisms and deductions of the above can a peculiarly comprehensive picture of the Eastern Penitentiary be reconstructed. Convicts customarily entered their cells upon commitment to the Eastern Penitentiary, not to emerge therefrom until the day of their liberation from prison, unless in case of punishment, ilhiess or death.® Exceptions to the rule were made infrequently, as in <}ases in which the convict was removed to work in an adjacent shop- cell, or to exercise himself alone in a yard, or even — as with Superintendent Wood in 1834 ^ — to wait on the table in his resi- dence. Even under such circumstances, the inflexible rule was followed that no association of prisoners or communication with €ach other was tolerated. The convict on his arrival at the prison was visited by the phy- sician, who until the year 1842 was an attending physician, but after that in residence. After the medical inspection and a hot bath, the prison uniform was given to the new prisoner, not the • Chapter XI. 1 McElwell. 3 Main features of the following description or routine from De Metz and Blouet, p. 28. [217] \/ 218 History of American Prisons striped or motley uniform of the prisons on the Auburn plan, but clothing without humiliating or conspicuous pattern. Experience early proved the danger of escape to be almost negligible, and the necessity of a striped uniform as a distinguishing mark was not felt. With bandaged eyes ^ the convict was led to the central rotunda or ** observatory," where the superintendent spoke briefly to him of the purposes of the prison, and of its rules and methods. Thence, still blindfolded, the convict was led to his cell, over the door of which was a number, by which he was henceforth to be known. Within the cell, his eyes were unbandaged. If he was so fortunate as to have a cell on the ground floor, he could exercise at specified periods in the little adjacent yard, corresponding approximately in size to his cell, and entered by a door from his cell. Never would a prisoner from the next cell to the right or left exercise when he was in the open air, for then there might be communication. During the first few days in his cell he was left almost entirely to himself, save when the oflScer brought him his meals. Without work or book he sat and thought, overwhelmed, generally by the horror of the silent, impassive, powerful, monotonous, relentless engine of punishment of which he had become a helpless part. The solitude seemed insufferable. He felt that he could never endure his sentence ; that he must certainly die before his time of liberation should come.^ After a few days the prisoner was asked if he desired some work, an offer generally eagerly accepted. If the prisoner had a trade, he was customarily allowed to follow it in prison. In retrospect, most prisoners testified that ''they would have died if they had not been permitted to work. ' ' ' Sunday seemed interminably long, because no work was allowed on that day. Work thus became an opportunity — a favor granted by the prison to well-behaved and industrious inmates, whereas in the prisons of the Auburn type work there was a painful, daily enforced task, to which the prisoner had to be driven on pain of punishment.^ The prisoner at the Eastern Penitentiary was, however, obliged to choose between being placed at work or in a dark cell. There was no simple option of working more or working less. His choice was seldom long in suspense, and he chose work.^ The Bible also became a document of interest to the prisoner, because his possession of it was a favor during his good behavior. The infrequent visit of the moral instructor, or of some visitor from the outside world, might be lengthened or made more frequent if the prisoner would try to learn to read from the Bible as a text- book. Moreover, any visit from an officer came to have an intense meaning to the prisoner. Such visits alone connected him with the world of living beings. One prisoner was cited by the Prussian 2 According to Julius the prisoner was not blindfolded, but his head was covered with a hood. Julius. S. Z., p. 190. * de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 197. s Same, p. 188. « Same, p. 24. ^ Same, p. 40. History of American Prisons 219 visitor, Doctor Julius, as saying that his greatest joy was the visit of a cricket or a butterfly because it seemed like company.^ No communication with family or friends was ordinarily allowed the convict. Julius found, several years after Crawford's visit, that, very exceptionally, the convict might be allowed to write his family about himself, but that he was never permitted to hear from them.^" So absolutely was the news of the outside world excluded, that months after the cholera raged in Philadelphia in 1832, the inmates were still unaware that the epidemic had occurred.^ Not one case of Asiatic cholera appeared in the Penitentiary, although the disease swept away numbers in the city. The sole visitors to the prisoner were the inspectors, the superintendent, the doctor, the moral instructor, the employees designated for that purpose, and the official visitors — who undoubtedly appeared seldom at the prison, and were the governor of the State, the members of the Legislature (represented by a committee who visited during the Legislative session) the Secretary of State, the judges of the Su- preme Court, the attorney general and his deputies, and the mayors and recorders of Philadelphia, Lancaster and Pittsburg. The active committee of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons visited frequently, and had the legal power of entrance.^^ Therefore, the prison was not an institution where the convicts were absolutely isolated. Only from other inmates were they relent- lessly separated. Heavy fines might be imposed upon a visitor who smuggled in a letter to an inmate, or acted as a means of communication between the inmates. No favors of food were granted; a prisoner, unless ill, must subsist only from prison rations. No tobacco, wine or beer was permitted. The prisoner arose at daybreak, or in summer between 4.30 and 5. He went to bed between 9 and 10 in the evening. In winter he worked after dark by lamplight, if his skill were sufficient to war- rant the prison the extra expenditure of light. The prisoner received three meals a day, breakfast at 7, dinner at 12, and supper at 6.^ Combe gave in his ''Notes on the United States" the diet of the prisoners. The men received for breakfast: 1 pint of coffee or cocoa ; for dinner % lb. of boiled beef without bone, or % lb. pork, 1 pint soup and ample potatoes. For supper they had mush ad libitum. They received % gallon of molasses per month, salt when asked for, and vinegar as a favor. Sometimes they had turnips and cabbages in the form of ''crout." They also received 1 lb. of bread per day, made of wheat or rye. If the prisoner was sick, he was removed to a solitary infirmary cell, where his diet was scanty, and where there was no greater chance of communication with other inmates than in his own cell. 8 Crawford, p. 11, » Julius. " Sittleche Zusbaende," Vol. II, p. 2o2. 10 Same, p. 191. "De Metz and Blouet, p. 28. "De Metz and Blouet, p. 24. 220 History of American Prisons If the prisoner became very sick, the door of his infirmary cell was left open, and an attendant on watch passed from one cell to another. All prisoners were subjected to the same regime. One day was wholly like another. No compensation was, until the year 1841, allowed the prisoner, save approbation for good conduct or good work. After 1840, over-stint was allowed. As soon as the prisoner became proficient, a moderate task, estimated at the actual cost of his maintenance was required of him. The balance of his labor was credited to him, the amount being paid on his release from prison. In 1841, $884.22 was thus expended for 31 prisoners on discharge, an average of $28.52. In 1842, the over-stint amounted to $955.54. The inspectors of the prison were appointed for two years by Supreme Court judges ; they elected their own president, secretary y and treasurer. They must be property holders, and live in the county of Philadelphia. They received no salary, but were free of military and jury duty and poor duty.^* The stimulus to good behavior and industry was during the first eleven years (1829-1840) based on the fear of deprivation of the privileges of labor, on moral literature, and on fear of positive punishments, ranging from reduction in diet to the extremes of the straight jacket, the shower-bath and the gag. The general behavior of the convicts was undoubtedly very satisfactory. The majority of the inmates seemed ''resigned, if not happy" after the first horror of separate confinement had diminished or de- parted.^2 The philosophy of the board of inspectors and of the superintendent was, a year from the opening of the prison, as follows : ^^ ''The character of the convict is generally social, to a fault. The vices of social life have heralded the ruin of his fortune and his hopes, and, when deprived of the society of his companions in vicious indulgences and guilt, he reads and listens with eagerness, because he is relieved by the variety from the weariness of his solitude. There he can only read and hear what is calculated to make him industrious and virtuous. "Personal vanity, which often leads the prisoner to value himself upon being regarded by his neighbors as a 'staunch man,' there deserts him, for there is no one to applaud, admire or see him. In the presence of those who are allowed to visit him, no vanity that is not praiseworthy can be indulged. Hence, this mode of punishment, bearing as it does with great severity upon the hardened and impenitent felon, is eminently calculated to break down hijr obdurate spirit. ' ' And when the prisoner has once experienced the operation of the principles of this institution on a broken spirit and a contrite heart, he learns, and he feels, that moral and religious reflection, relieved by industrious occupation at his trade, comfort and support his mental and physical powers, divest his solitary cell of all its horrors, and his punishment of much of its severity. In 1831, during a period of three months, only two instances, were recorded for which even a meal had been forfeited for bad conduct.^^ In 1834, the inspectors declared that the penitentiary- 12 Board of Inspectors, 1830, p. 17. 1* Same. IS Board of Inspectors, 1830, p. 10. " Board of Inspectors, 1831, p. 9. History of American Prisons 221 system was emphatically a mild and humane discipline." It was a system of privations rather than of punishments.^^ De Beaumont and de Tocqueville stated in 1832 that there was in the Eastern Penitentiary no punishment, because there was no infraction of the rules.^^ The French investigators found that in Auburn the pris- oners were treated much more severely, but that at Philadelphia they were much more unhappy.^® William Crawford, the English specialist, bore similar testimony in 1834 to the mildness of the disciplined^ In 1835, there occurred, however, a serious Legislative investigation of the Eastern Penitentiary. Sweeping charges of cruelty and immoralitj^ on the part of the superintendent and lesser / officials were made by the attorney general of the State. An investi- gation, extending over several months, was held by a Legislative committee, resulting in the spring of 1835 in a majority report and a ainority report.^^ The following findings were common to both reports: No charge of immorality on the part of the superintendent was proved. Physical punishments of a severe nature were at times employed. Buckets of cold water had been thrown in the winter time upon an inmate with filthy habits. This inmate was probably insane. The gag had been used upon a prisoner — also probably insane — and the said prisoner had sud- denly died under the process. The straight jacket was used at times with refractory prisoners. . Convicts were not infrequently employed outside their cells, on operations s/ such as cooking, breaking coal, making fires, and occasionally as waiters, and in work connected with building and construction of cells. These convicts did not work in association. The main issue between the majority and minority reports of the committee was as to the degree of severity of the punishments employed. The majority report was extenuating and apologetic, y finding the harsh physical punishments, as employed at the prison, duplicated in insane asylums and in the United States Navy. The minority report expressed horror at the frequency of the extreme punishments. The minority report regarded the majority report as a whitewash. The investigation demonstrated that the Eastern Penitentiary administered a graded system of punishments.^* The first and mildest punishment was a deprivation of the use of the exercise yard by the convict for a given period. The second stage of punish- ment included the forfeiture of a dinner for a period of from two to three weeks — in other words, a serious reduction in rations. For severer cases, the dark cell was employed ; this being an ordi- nary cell from which light was totally excluded. Often even the single blanket was denied the prisoner. Every twenty-four hours the convict received eight ounces of bread and some water.^* His " Board of Inspectors, 1834, p. 4. " Board of Inspectors, 1834, p. 9. 1* de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 40. ^ de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 46. 21 Crawford, p 22 Report of Joint Committee of Legislation in relation to Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, 1835. 23 McElvi^ell, p. 15ff for description of punishments here summarized. 2* According to Julius (S. Z., p. 192), one and one-half pounds bread and one pint of water every twenty-four hours. 222 History of American Prisons sufferings were intense, especially in cold weather. One convict had been held in the dark cell for forty-two days, and was suffering from starvation and delirium when taken out. The next degree of punishment in an ascending scale was the absolute deprivation of food, for a period of not over three days. A further stage was reached with the infliction of ''ducking," in which process the convict was suspended from the yard wall by the wrists, and drenched with buckets of cold water, the degree of severity of which depended upon the state of the atmosphere. The *'mad or tranquilizing chair" was another instrument of corporal punishment. It was a large box-chair made of planks. The convict was strapped in the chair and his hands were hand- cuffed. For the feet there was no resting place. It was not possible to move body or limbs, and the consequent pain was intense. Arms and legs swelled frightfully. Even while in this position prisoners had been beaten. The ''straight- jacket," another punishment, was a sack or bag- ging cloth of three thicknesses, with pocketholes in the front for the admission of the hands. In the back there were rows of eyelets, whereby the jacket might be laced up. The jacket was forced over the head of the convict, and his hands were inserted in the pockets ; a collar was fitted about the neck, but the head was left free. The jacket was kept upon the prisoner for from four to nine hours. Convicts in the Eastern Penitentiary had been so tightly laced into the jacket that their necks and faces were black with congealed blood. The torture could be made excruciating. One convict was reported to have lost the use of his hand. Men of the stoutest nerve would shriek as if on the rack. The ' ' gag ' ^ was the severest and most complicated of the punish- ments. It was under this treatment that an insane convict died, thus precipitating the investigation. The gag resembled the stiff bit of a bridle, having an iron ' ' palet ' ' or mouthpiece in the center, and chains at each end. It was placed in the mouth of the sufferer, and drawn tightly toward the jaws, the chains being fastened in a lock. The prisoner's hands were placed in leather gloves which had iron staples in them, through which staples leather straps were introduced, and his arms were crossed behind his back. Other straps were passed around his hands, and then passed between the chains of the gag and the back of his neck. Now his hands were forcibly drawn up to his shoulders, and his head drawn back, this tightening the gag in the mouth, and rendering the agony intoler- able. The bits and chains, passing with force against the veins and arteries, necessarily produced a suffusion of blood to the head, and the sufferer, if not speedily relieved, was in great danger of death. After the investigation, the severer physical punishments were apparently abandoned. The majority report had found the duck- ing process ' ' indiscreet, ' ' but discovered no evidences of intentional cruelty. The committee stated that the cold shower-bath was fre- quently employed in the best establishments for the insane as a History of American Prisons 223 disciplinary and curative measure. The thirteen buckets of cold water with which the convict in question was drenched had succeeded in breaking him of his filthy habits. Nor was the use of the gag unusual, the navy being cited. It was frequently used in the Eastern Penitentiary, and the committee regarded it therefore as not unusual. It had not been considered by the attending physician, Doctor Bache, as cruel, and therefore the gag was held to be neither cruel nor unusual. The gag was not naturally calculated to produce death, and therefore the rela- tion of the punishment of the convict in question and his death was not that of cause and effect. By such reasoning did the committee exculpate the administration. Nevertheless, the disciplinary methods of the Eastern Peniten- tiary should not be judged by present standards of estimating punishments. The age in which the Eastern Penitentiary was founded was one of standarized cruelty in discipline. Both the British and American navies were rigorous in corporal punishment. If free seamen were thus flogged and otherwise punished, should convicted malefactors and most desperate criminals be let off more easily ? The dark cell seemed a mild and humanitarian substitute for corporal punishment. Indeed, the Boston Prison Discipline Society in the first ten or fifteen years of its existence took no clear-cut stand against the floggings and other harsh disciplinary measures of the Auburn system. Even Dorothea Dix was reluct- y" antly obliged to concede the necessity of flogging the most refractory ^ prisoners. The list of corporal punishments, outlined above, is for the sensitive student of to-day most painful reading. And it is not pleasant to realize that only within the last few years, even in the State of New York, has the severer punishment of the dark cell and the ''cooler," a synonym for the dark cell, been abandoned in the prisons. Less than ten years ago the writer saw men on the verge of collapse in the dark cells in the Penitentiary of the City of New York. Mr. Osborne undergoing a week's imprisonment in 1913, in Auburn Prison, in order to acquaint himself with the routine life of the inmates in that year, was put into the * ' dungeon ' ' and subjected to cruelties of treatment that horrified the State when published. It is still more or less customary in some prisons to stand recalcitrant prisoners up in a cage so constructed that they cannot sit down. Corporal punishment, floggings, chaining pris- oners to the wall, stringing up so that the toes barely touch the floor, and similar semi-tortures, are still from time to time announced in investigations, and in the statements of inmates or discharged prisoners. The fact is, in many cases, that the will to administer a prison on humanitarian lines, and the intention to inflict severe discipline upon those inmates who will not conform to such humane adminis- tration, goes hand in hand. Repeatedly, wardens were found, in the prisons of a decade ago, who were men of standing in the community, men of ideals, and yet who practiced severe punish- V / 224 History of American Prisons ments as a part of the necessary conduct of a prison. It was not paradoxical so much as it was traditional. The customs had been handed down, and had the sanction of long usage, and frequently of law. The warden, generally politically appointed, and aware that his term was bounded partly by the fate of his political party, was not inclined to be rebellious against tradition, but on the other hand was inclined to continue the practices which, however abhor- rent to him at first, were regarded by the officials of the prison as necessary and as a part of the customs of the prison that the warden must ' ' stand for. ' ' It was the gradual introduction of the honor system, which indi- vidualized the treatment of prisoners as no previous methods had, that by its very nature reduced the use of physical and severe punishments, because it forcibly impressed upon warden and offi- cials alike the fact of the humanness of the inmate, and his potential capacities to be like other men. It is relatively easy to punish persons out of a mass, but hard to punish the individual when he stands clearly by himself. While to know all, in prison, has not been to pardon all, in accordance with the French adage, it is a fact that to know much more of the prisoner has resulted in the recognition that punishment is one of the most futile methods of achieving permanent change, as compared with the systematic and intelligent use of privileges and deprivations, and the stimulus of personal ambition and the desire for proper gain. Therefore we find at the Eastern Penitentiary a generally mild and benevolent administration, coupled with the occasional use of literally horrible tortures. Samuel L. Wood, the warden, was a Quaker of high standing. Indeed, the Legislative committee found Wood even too liberal in his relaxation of the prison rules, in the cases of convicts who seemed to need exercise or outdoor employ- ment, and when constant cell confinement appeared too arduous. The committee held that any association of a convict even with someone not a convict while at work — as with a civilian black- smith — was contrary to the law requiring constant separate confinement.^^ The administration weathered thus the stormy year of 1835. From this year until 1840, when Mr. Wood resigned, the discipline seems to have gone forward without serious friction. Harriet Martineau, an English woman, wrote in her ' ' Society in America, ' ' published in 1837 in New York, that she had, in her visits to the cells at the Eastern Penitentiary, been favored with the confidence of a great number of the prisoners, every one of whom told her (not being aware of the existence of the other prisoners) that he was under obligation to those who had charge of him for treating him with respect. In 1838 a moral instructor was appointed. The original law of 1829 had provided for an unsalaried chaplain, which office the administration found it impossible to fill because of the entire lack of provision for a salary. Despite the frequent and devoted visits 25 Report of Joint Committtee, 1835, p. 22. History of American Prisons 225 of several clergymen, the need of systematic moral and religious training of the convicts was repeatedly urged by the prison board and the warden. The Legislature was obdurate for nearly ten years. George Combe, the noted Scotch phrenologist, visited this prison in January, 1839. He wrote: "No single circumstance in the history of Pennsylvania indicates the low state of general information among the people more strongly than the ex- traordinary fact that after erecting this penitentiary at great expense, the Legislature continues insensible to every entreaty of its legal guardians to be furnished with adequate means of moral and religious instruction of the prisoners. ' ' When finally the salaried office of ' ' moral instructor ' ' was created — and tilled by a former Baptist minister — many petitions of citizens urged the Legislature to discontinue the office for fear of proselyting. The excellent moral results upon the prisoners, keenly desirous of human company, caused the Legislature of 1839 not to yield to the importunate citizens. A striking testimony to the good order and the quiet atmosphere of the Eastern Penitentiary came from an unexpected source in 1843, when two members of the board of managers of Sing Sing Prison, who had officially visited the Philadelphia institution, reported that ^® "they were forcibly struck with the contrast and order that prevailed at the Eastern Penitentiary, and the confusion and discord that reign here (at Sing Sing). There, at the Eastern Penitentiary, are seen none of the evils which were witnessed at our prison. There was abundant opportunity for thought and reflection. No scenes of riot diverted the convicts' minds from the thought of the crimes they had committed, or the ruin they had brought on themselves. **The humble and the penitent incurred no hazard of being compelled to transgress even in the place of their punishment. The last moments of the dying man were not disturbed by ribald songs or abominable blasphemy. The vicious held no supremacy there. .No assaults upon the officers, no battles among the wretched inmates, were permitted to break the quiet of that prison house. No opportunities were afforded to the veteran criminal of extending the corruption of service among the weak and the timid. *'No inducements were held out to the hardened to defy all control and set an example of disorder and disobedience. Heaven's first law — that of order — reigned therej and while in the solitary system was seen the hazard of stultifying the mind, that evil could hardly be deemed greater than the cer- tainty, in our prison, of corrupting the heart and destroying the moral sense. ' ' Striking testimony of a similar character was given by Captain Maryatt, quoting a prisoner at the Eastern Penitentiary who had served a term at Sing Sing : ^^ **In Sing Sing the punishment is corporal — here it Is more mental. In Sing Sing there was little chance of a person's reformation, as the treatment was harsh and brutal, and the feelings of the prisoners were those of in- dignation and resentment. Their whole time was occupied in trying how they could deceive their keepers, and communicate with each other by variety of stratagem. Here a man was left to his own reflection, and at the same time he was treated like a man. Here he was his own tormentor; when there, J he was quite as much wronged himself. ... At Sing Sing there was^ great injustice and no redress. The infirm man was put to equal labor with the robust, and punished if he did not perform as much. The flogging was very severe at Sing Sing." 2« Annual Report of Inspectors of Mount Pleasant Prison 27 Diary in America, Vol, II, pp. 264-269. 226 History of American Prisons In 1844, the cultural work of the Eastern Penitentiary was extended by the addition of a school teacher, and ample time was given to moral and secular instruction.^^ A library of useful books was established. Six gardens were being constructed, thus furnish- ing employment for twelve invalids, half a day each. Between 400 and 500 bushels of tomatoes, for prison fare use, were one of the products. Vegetables as well as flowers were also reared by many of the convicts in their own airing yards, and were thus "made the instruments of productive and very interesting amusements. ' ' -^ Lights were allowed in the cells of inmates until nine o'clock in most cases. An innovation was introduced in the form of congre- gational singing by the convicts in their own cells, as an uplifting feature, but it is recorded that officers "in socks" spied in the corridors to observe and prevent any communication between con- victs under cover of the sound.^° Richard Vaux, who was the president of the board of inspectors of the Penitentiary, wrote that the period from 1829 to 1849 was one of experiment and experience.'^^ The period that we are now considering is almost coincident with that of Vaux. Let us seek to analyze the results of the first fifteen years, dur- ing which period the principles and methods of this world- famous prison had become substantially fixed. Nowhere else in /the country were the friends of prison reform so philosophically ^ inclined, or in the aggregate so humanely disposed. The Philadel- phia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons was already an old and established society, with power to enter for benevolent purposes the prisons of the State. Its membership was undoubtedly largely from the Society of Friends. The board of inspectors was composed mainly of Quakers. The superintend- ent was a Quaker. Quaker influence was strong in the State Legislature. The field represented by the Eastern Penitentiary was, in short, broadly open for the development, under the most favorable auspices, of a wise and philosophically grounded prison system. The Quakers had championed the Pennsylvania system, and did not hesitate to defend it. The establishment of the Eastern Penitentiary was followed by a curious, and in many respects a most unfortunate, development in American prison theory and methods. As we have seen in previous chapters of this study, two prison systems, the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems, took shape, and became bitter rivals. Each system adhered to a certain basic principle, namely, that prisoners should be kept from all communication with each other, but the systems differed, in that Auburn used silence as the medium of separation, and Philadelphia used the actual physical separation of inmates at all times. This fundamental difference of method, and other differences less material, might have been made the sub- ject of friendly and constructive discussion, and perhaps of ultimate 28 Report of Inspectors, 1844, p. 15. 2» Report of Inspectors, 1844, p. 36.- ^ Report of Inspectors, 1844, p. 23. 31 Report of Inspectors, 1844, p. 85. History of American Prisons 227 readjustment and compromise into a third system, had there not been injected into the situation, in 1826, by the establishment of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, an element of militant and contentious advocacy of the Auburn system at all costs that grew, / with the founding of the Eastern Penitentiary, into a violent and acrimonious campaign against the Pennsylvania system, even before it had had a fair chance to get started. Both Philadelphia and Boston had now societies for prison reform, but with a basic difference in constitution. The Philadel- phia society was a mutual organization, in which there seemed to be a general high level of interest and intelligence. The Boston society was practically one man, the Reverend Louis Dwight, who was indefatigable, and pursued both prison reform and the Philadelphia group with almost equal persistence. The Philadelphia society was pacifistic and didn 't like a fight. Dwight was a born mission- ary, with the militant spirit strongly developed in what he believed to be a righteous cause. The Philadelphia society published no journal of information or propaganda, relying upon the annual reports of the inspectors of the Eastern Penitentiary to interpret that system. The Boston Society's annual reports gave fine chance for pamphleteering, and Dwight was a zealous, untiring, an unre- served adherent of the system he had espoused, almost with deliberate blindness, seeing for many years no faults in a faulty system. The Boston Prison Discipline Society's annual reports were the only documents of the period in which the progress, . methods and statistics of American prisons were compiled. Natur- ally, Dwight 's personal slant on the American prison methods colored the choice and the display of the yearly descriptions of American penal institutions, and of the development of American methods. Consequently, these annual publications, coming out of Boston, became for practically all save the adherents of the Pennsylvania system authoritative in a period when prisons were a relatively new and serious problem in all American States. Legislatures purchased copies of Dwight 's reports by the hundreds, and cir- culated them as penal truth. The annual reports were otherwise distributed far and wide. Dwight became the high national expert on prisons. His society — which meant him himself — furnished documents wherever new prisons were being planned. There was no such counter-diligence coming out of Philadelphia. Dwight traveled extensively. He advised, and appeared before, Legisla- tures and committees, and wherever he went he was a bitter and outspoken opponent of the Pennsylvania system. It is probably not too much to say that this one man in large measure conditioned the form of prison structure and method adopted in many an American State, and consequently lasting down almost to the present day. Dwight 's platform on prison management was simple. Auburn, in the first place, was a model for the world. A prison should be economically built, and economically administered. A prison 228 History of American Prisons should support itself from the labor of the convicts. Prisons should have a low death rate. Prisons should render impossible the communication of prisoners with each other. The opening of the Eastern Penitentiary challenged not only D wight's sober judgment, but aroused in him nothing less than what the psychologists to-day would call an emotional complex. They were doing in Philadelphia just what he had staked his repu- tation on denying as a policy. The Eastern Penitentiary had proved by far the costliest of all the American prisons to build. It would, in his opinion, be equally expensive to administer. By the constant isolation of the convicts, it had raised a system that denied the supremacy of the Auburn methods. Its architectural layout was wholly different from that of Auburn. It was heretical ! And so, as the years came and went, Dwight inserted into the reports of the Boston Society conclusions that were little short of deliberately misleading regarding the institution in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, a considerable amount of literature was growing up relative to principles and methods in sound prison discipline. Eng- land, France, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland and Italy were seeking light. The conditions of promiscuous association of prisoners were similar in Europe to those in the American prisons, that the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems aimed to abolish. There existed on the one hand a continuing correspondence between English prison reformers and representative Americans with simi- lar interests, particularly in Philadelphia. The London Society of Prison Discipline published an annual report that was somewhat circulated in America, and carried occasional references to Ameri- can prisons. The early successes of Walnut Street, from 1790 to 1800, had been enthusiastically heralded in Europe by the Due de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. In England, the London Society, in France the thinkers on prison administration like Charles Lucas and Moreau-Christophe, in Belgium Ducpetiaux, and in Prussia Doctor Julius, were propagandists for some fundamental prison reforms. They were all searching for the latest and best, and so when Auburn and the Eastern Penitentiary were established and heralded as successful innovations in this complicated field, they straightway planned to visit American prisons either personally or through representatives. They came to this country in the thirties and they found the two rival systems operating, one, the Auburn, indigenous, invented by Captain Brittin, or Captain Lynds, or Mr. Cray, all of Auburn, and on the other hand the Pennsylvania system, a product of the Philadelphians, but with the architectural plans of Haviland, an English architect, and copied from earlier English prisons. On the return of the several representatives to their own coun- ytries, they published comprehensive accounts of their American ^studies. During the twenty years from 1840 to 1860 it might almost be said that the question of the relative merits of the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems was transferred, in the matter of discussion and heated argument to Europe.^ A new 82 Foulke. Remarks on Cellular Separation, p. 2. History of American Prisons 229 literature seemed to be forming. Many European authors wrote ^xhaustively on the subject who had never visited this country, and who had never seen the prisons they so warmly described and discussed. Finally, in 1846, a first international prison congress convened at Frankfort on the Main, at the invitation of German specialists in prison discipline. The entire session of several days was devoted to the discussion of the invariable question, the relative merits of the two American systems. This problem was regarded as fundamental, and something that must be settled for Europe, because almost all Europe was building prisons. It is amusing, in . a way, to think that while it was impossible to gather in this^^ country a group of people to determine the relative merits of the two systems in open discussion and with scientific mind, Europe became the verbal battleground for the settlement of our own problems, so far as a settlement was possible. The two systems were analyzed acutely at this conference, as they had never been analyzed at home. Dwight of Boston was the only American present, but beyond briefly stating at one session the chief activities of the Boston Society, he took no further part in the discussions, which were conducted in German, French and English. But we are getting ahead of our study, chronologically. In 1832, Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville published in Paris their famous treatise ''On the Penitentiary System in the United States," which was translated into English by Francis Lieber in 1833 and published in Philadelphia. This work, crowned by the > French Academy, was the first of a number of careful and scholarly studies of American prisons published by foreign students during the period of 1830-1840, after personal investigation of our prisons. De Beaumont and de Tocqueville visiting the United States in 1831, found that solitude, applied to the criminal in order to conduct him to reformation by reflection, rested upon a philoso- phical and true conception.^* Pennsylvania had adopted a system which at the same time agreed with the austerity of her manners, and her philanthropic sensibility. The penitentiary at Cherry Hill (the Eastern Penitentiary) was a combination of the principle first tried at the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburg (solitude without labor) and that of Auburn (association in silence during the day).®* The Frenchmen found, as a basis for the Pennsylvania system, / that while there were similar punishments and crimes called by the same name, there were no two beings equal in regard to their morals; and every time that convicts were put together, there existed necessarily a fatal influence of some convicts upon others, because, in the association of the wicked, it was not the less guilty who acted on the more criminal, but the more depraved who influ- enced those who were less so. The prison must, therefore, since it was impossible to classify prisoners, come to a separation of all.^'^ ^ de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p, 3. ** de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 10. ^ de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 21 230 History of American Prisons If it was true that all evil in prison originated from the intercourse of the prisoners among themselves, it followed that nowhere was this vice avoided with greater safety than in Philadelphia.^^ Perpetual seclusion in a cell was an irresistible factj which curbed the prisoner without a struggle, and thus deprived alto- gether his submission of a moral character (by which the authors seemed to mean that there was no clash of emotions and circum- stances such as would cause the ultimate yielding of the prisoner to the principles of the prison as a result of the mastery of self, through the recognition of the justice of the position taken by the prison). The French critics found that the prisoner obeyed much less the established discipline, than the physical impossibility of acting otherwise. On the other hand, the Auburn system gave to the prisoners the "habits of society" (that is, the painfulness of compulsory labor, the necessity of laboring, and the necessity of obedience to authority).®^ While the Pennsylvania system had often been reproached with rendering labor by the prisoners impossible, and while in truth a great many arts could not be pursued by a single workman in a narrow place to advantage, nevertheless the penitentiary of Phila- delphia showed that the various occupations that could be pursued by isolated men were sufficiently numerous to occupy them use- fully.^^ The Pennsylvania system was expensive, but not difficult to establish, and once established, the simplicity of its methods would enable it to run itself.^ At Auburn, continued the French critics, the prisoners were more severely treated; at Philadelphia they were more unhappy. At Auburn, where they were whipped, they died less frequently than at Philadelphia where, for humanity's sake, they were put in a ^olitary and sombre cell.^ De Beaumont and de Tocqueville did not hesitate to state their conviction that the system of perpetual and absolute seclusion, established in Philadelphia in full vigor, would prove less favorable to the health of the inmates than would the Auburn system.** On the othei^ hand, the moral situation in which the convicts were placed was eminently calculated to facilitate their regenera- tion. The system seemed especially powerful over individuals endowed with some elevation of mind. The absolute solitude produced the deepest impression on all prisoners.*^ They were particularly accessible to religious sentiments. It was hard for anyone enjoying the ordinary intercourse of free society to feel the whole value of a religious idea thrown into the lonesome cell of a convict.'^ Could there be a combination for reformation more powerful than that of a prison which handed over to a prisoner all the trials of solitude, while it led him through reflection to 3« de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 23. 37 de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 24. 88 de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 34. s» de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 40. *•> de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 47. ** de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 47. *i de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 50. *2 de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 51. ] History of American Prisons 231 remorse, through religion to hope — a prison which made him industrious by the burden of idleness, and which, while it inflicted the torment of solitude, made him find a charm in the converse of pious m^n, whom otherwise he would have seen with indifference, and heard without pleasure ? Without doubt the impression on the criminal was deep ; experience alone would show whether the im- pression was durable. It was to be questioned whether the sudden transition, at the end of the prisoner's term from the solitary- cell to the busy outside world might not be demoralizing. Yet that disadvantage was offset by the advantage that the prisoners, not having seen each other or known each other in prison, would not know each others' faces afterwards.^* Did the Pennsylvania system reform? De Beaumont and de Toqueville emphasized in their answer to this question an important fact. What was meant by *' reformation " ? In a literal and specific sense, it meant the radical change of a wicked person into an honest man — a change that produced virtues instead of vices. Such reformation, spiritual and all encompassing , must he very rare, more infrequent, indeed, than even the chaplains of American prisons believed. Such thorough-going conversions might occur here and there, but there existed no human agency of proving this complete reformation.*^ Nevertheless, the French critics pointed out that at Auburn, one-third of the pardons were given on the presumption of such reformation. "The theories on the reform of the prisoners are vague and uncertain," wrote de B. and de T. **It is not yet known to what degree the wicked may- be regenerated, and by what means this regeneration may be obtained." (de B. & de T., p. 49.) Of a different kind of reformation, less thorough, but yet useful to society, there were many instances:^ ** Perhaps leaving the prison he is not an honest man, but he has con- tracted honest habits. He was an idler; now he knows how to work. His ignorance prevented him from pursuing a useful occupation; now he knows how to read and write; and the trade which he has learned in the prison fur- nishes him the means of existence which formerly he had not. Without loving virtue, he may detest the crime of which he has suffered the cruel consequences. And if he is not more virtuous, he has become at least more jtidicious; his morality is not honor, but interest. His religious faith is perhaps neither lively nor deep; but even supposing that religion has not touched his heart, his mind has contracted habits of order, and he possesses ^ rules for his conduct in life. Without having a powerful religious conviction, he has acquired a taste for moral principles which religion affords; finally, if he has not become in truth better, he is at least more obedient to the laws, and that is all that society has the right to demand." The French critics found, in brief, that the Pennsylvania system would afford more reformation than that of Auburn. The latter was more conformable to the habits of men in society, and effected a greater number of reformations of a kind that might be called ''legal." The Pennsylvania system produced more honest men, <3(ie Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 52. «de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 55. *^de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 59 232 History of American Prisons and the Auburn system more obedient citizens. The advantages of the American penitentiary system in general were summarized : The impossibility of the mutual corruption of the prisoners. The great probability of their contracting habits of obedience and industry, which would render them useful citizens. The possibility of a radical reformation. William Crawford, secretary since 1817 of the London Prison Discipline Society,*^ visited for the British Government the United States in 1832 to 1833, and investigated in particular its State prisons. His findings were embodied on his return to England in 1834 in a volume, remarkably complete as to architectural plans, facts and statistics ; it was the most elaborate published in any land up to that time.*^ Crawford adhered emphatically to the Pennsyl- vania system. He uniformly found the deterrent influence to be very great, and such as belonged to no other system of jail manage- ment. The prisoners with whom he talked in the Philadelphia prison said that the discipline in prisons on the Auburn plan was less corrective than were the restraints of continued solitude. In the Eastern Penitentiary the segregation from the world was certain and complete. He could perceive no angry or vindictive feelings among the prisoners. A mild and subdued spirit prevailed among them. Solitary confinement seemed to him a powerful agent in the reformation of morals. Instances had occurred in which pris- oners had expressed their gratitude for the moral benefit they had derived from their imprisonment.'^ The discipline seemed to be safe and efficacious; it had no unfavorable effect upon the mind or health. He recommended for England the adoption of the Pennsylvania system for every class of offenders; for those awaiting trial, witnesses, and for those imprisoned for short terms, as well as for the convicts. Recognizing, however, the expensiveness of prisons on the Pennsylvania plan, he found himself driven to consider the alternative of the Auburn system as developed at Wethersfield, but he recommended solitude for certain classes of offenders.^" The effects of the Auburn system, Crawford was persuaded, had been greatly overrated.^^ The rule of silence was clandestinely broken, notes were exchanged and spectators were gazed at. Severe punishments were necessary in order to preserve the system of silence. Invariably the lash produced strong feelings of degrada- tion and revenge. The discipline at Auburn was of a physical nature, that of Pennsylvania of a moral nature. The whip inflicted immediate pain, but solitude inspired permanent terror. The whip degraded while it humiliated, while solitude subdued, but did not debase. At Auburn the convict was uniformly treated with harsh- ness, at Philadelphia with civility. The Auburn prisoner, when liberated, conscious that he was known to past associates, and that *''■ Julius, d. amerik. Besserungs Systeme. Preface. *8 Same. p. 32. *» Crawford, p. 11. BO Crawford, p. 31. 61 Same, p. 19. History of American Prisons 233 the public eye had gazed upon him, saw an accuser in every man he met. The Philadelphia convict quitted his cell, secure from recognition and exempt from reproach.^^ A striking statement of Crawford was that no one was more emphatic in his advocacy of solitary confinement (with labor) by day and night than the warden of Wethersfield — the prison regarded by the advocates of the Auburn system as the model prison on that plan.^ Francis Lieber, the translator into English of the penitentiary study of de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, was himself an erudite and painstaking student of prison discipline of his time. He was born in Berlin in 1800, and after imprisonment for political reasons^ by the Prussian Government in 1819 and 1824, he removed to the United States in 1827 and settled in Philadelphia, where he became the editor of the Encyclopaedia Americana (1829-1833). Lieber citing the fact that prisons had been called hospitals for patients afflicted with moral diseases was an earnest sponsor of the Pennsylvania system, which in his opinion worked calmly and steadily, without subjecting the convict by repeated punishments, to a continual recurrence of disgrace for misdemeanors which the common principles of human nature were sufficient to induce him to commit.^* The greatest step that a convict of the common class could make toward reformation was from thoughtlessness to thoughtfulness. Few committed to prisons were accustomed to think; it was for want of thought that they became guilty. Sur- rounded as they were at Auburn by a variety of objects during the day, they could not feel the same inducement to reflection as under the pressure of constant solitude. Lieber had asked many prisoners if they preferred to be placed together with others ; almost invari- ably they considered it the greatest privilege to be left alone.^^ Theorizing on the possibility of serious mental results from sepa- rate confinement, Lieber made the surprising statement that all experience proved how difficult it was to make any impression on the feelings of the benighted and unhappy subjects of criminal punishment.^^ Lieber recognized the serious expense incurred in the building of the Penitentiary, but he held that other similar institutions could be built far more cheaply. But even though prisons on the Pennsyl- vania plan proved expensive, the reformation it effected would warrant the increased outlay.^*^ Prisoners did not leave the Penn- sylvania institution worse than when they entered. In separate confinement a specific gradation of punishment could be obtained as surely, and with as much facility, as by any other system.^ Furthermore, by virtue of the greater severity of separate confine- ment, a greater reduction in the term of imprisonment might be 62 Crawford, p. 19. " Same, p. 31. "de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 292. « Same, p. 294. " Same, p. 296. «" Same, p. 297. » Same, p. 298. 234 History of American Prisons achieved. Months might be substituted for the years in sentences, as answering all the ends of retributive justice and penitential y experienced^ The cheapest method of keeping prisoners was that which was most likely to reform them. To the United States came in 1835 Doctor Niclaus Heinrich Julius, representative of Prussia, to study our prisons. He was the leading German student of prison discipline, and was the editor and publisher of a magazine devoted to prison science, as it was developed at the time. Doctor Julius was also an emphatic advocate of the Pennsylvania plan.^" At Auburn there was too much dis- traction of attention. The time of punishment could be shortened at Philadelphia because of the deeper impression produced by solitude. Auburn had a more physical and negative effect, Phila- delphia a more moral and positive effect. Other factors, already cited under previously quoted authorities, were reiterated by Julius. A further advantage of the Philadelphia plan was that no central hospital was necessary, which under the Auburn plan became a place of idleness and verbal communication. If necessary, both sexes might be housed with propriety under the Pennsylvania plan in the same prison since all rooms were separate. The Pennsylvania system was therefore the best plan in Europe or America for prison discipline and for reformation.^^ The alleged detriment to health, and the greater mortality, Julius denied. He also denied that by the isolation of convicts valuable social tenden- cies were destroyed. How could any association in prison of criminals with each other be valuable? Indeed, even the Auburn plan allowed no actual association. Doctor Julius stated that he found wardens of prisons on the Auburn plan who said that if they had the rebuilding of their prisons to do, they would build on the Pennsylvania plan. »While initial costs seemed greater, the Pennsylvania plan never- theless dispensed with messhall, hospital, workshops, chapel and other buildings for congregate purposes. The extravagant archi- tectural adornments of the Eastern Penitentiary did not need to be repeated in future prisons.®^ Private vices were no more likely to occur under the Pennsylvania system than under the Auburn system, while sodomy was rendered impossible. To Julius a prison was always a prison. The prisoner must never for an instant forget the fact. All that the prisoner possessed belonged to the State, for the eradication of the debt that had arisen through his guilt.^ The prison was an opportunity for atonement. Julius was strongly opposed to any alleviation in prison discipline that would make the prison anything but a place of repentance. From France came a second delegation, consisting of De Metz and Blouet. De Metz was a counsellor at the royal court of justice in Paris and Blouet was a government architect. Their mission B»de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 299. «o Julius, d. Amerik. Besserungs Systeme, p. 8ff. «i Same, p. 33. 82 Same, p. 39. «» Same, p. 256. History of American Prisons 235 was especially to weigh the relative merits of the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems. Their report to the French Government was statistically and architecturally a monumental work. These French specialists reaffirmed the preferences of other European visitors for the Pennsylvania plan.^ It eliminated flogging; the association of prisoners while in prison, and their mutual recogni- tion after discharge. There was greater reformative value in solitude ; classification of prisoners was unnecessary. There was no distraction in moral and religious instruction, and the solitary cell furnished to the prison officials a better chance to study intensively the individual prisoner. From the Philadelphia prison there seemed to be less chance of escape, and its separate cells permitted this type of prison to be used, if necessary, for all classes of criminals. **In all prisons of the Auburn type, punishment is either cruel or insuffi- cient. Silence can succeed only with cruelty. There is either cruelty or impunity. ' ' On the other hand, the painstaking analysis of Blouet showed the far greater expensiveness in construction of a prison on the Penn- sylvania plan. Estimating for France, Blouet declared that an Auburn-type prison of 480 cells could be built in Paris for 932,000 francs, or a per capita cost of 1,942 francs, or approximately $388 per inmate. A prison for 480 inmates on the Philadelphia plan would cost in Paris 1,709,000 francs, or 3, 561 francs per inmate, or approximately $712 per inmate. From the financial standpoint, the Auburn system was much more economical and safe. Mondelet and Neilson, the Canadian commissioners who followed in 1834 the above-mentioned men in their investigation of the two prison systems, also declared for the Pennsylvania system because it offered better protection to inmates both in and after the institu- tion, and partly because so many complaints were being made by the mechanics against the labor conditions under the Auburn sys- tem. The two Canadians recognized that the Pennsylvania build- ings cost more and that the system earned less, but their recom- mendations in 1835 against the Auburn system were followed by the Legislature of lower Canada, and Haviland's plan for the Trenton prison in New Jersey was chosen by Lower Canada for a model of the prison they planned to construct.^ On the other hand. Commissioners John Macauley and H. C. Thompson, who had been sent early in the thirties from upper Canada to examine into American prisons in the United States, reported in a statement dated Kingston, upper Canada, November 12th, 1832, that they favored the Auburn system for a new peniten- tiary in upper Canada for the following reasons : ^ The people of upper Canada favor the Auburn system. There are important testimonials in its favor. Other States have built prisons on the same type. The Pennsylvania system is yet in the experimental stage. «*De Metz and Blouet, p. 34. ^ Julius, d. Amerik, Besserungs Systeme. «« B. P. D. S., 1834. 236 History of American Prisons And, finally, international approval of the Pennsylvania system came in 1846, when at the first international prison congress at Frankfort on the Main, the delegates from the leading European countries passed, by almost unanimous vote, the following resolution : *' Separate confinement can be used in general with such increasing or decreasing degrees of severity as are conditioned by the nature of the offense, and by the character and conduct of the prisoners, so that each prisoner shall be occupied with useful labor, shall have exercise each day in the open air, shall receive religious, moral and school instruction, shall take part in divine service, and shall receive the visits of the chaplain of his own re- ligious faith, the director of the prison, the prison physician, the members of the supervisory board and of the prisoners' aid societies which may be permitted by the prison rules." We have cited above an impressive sequence of opinions highly favorable to the Pennsylvania system. Against these formidable published decisions of men of special qualifications were arrayed practically only the annual publications of the Boston Society. Yet that organization possessed the great advantage of being always alert and on the ground. The annual reports of the Boston Society ^ve no opinions of foreign critics unfavorable to Auburn or yiavorable to Pennsylvania. In this one cannot refrain from ques- Y tioning severely the ethics of Dwight. While de Beaumont and de Tocqueville had been translated by Francis Lieber, it is very doubtful whether the publications of the other Europeans had any considerable circulation in the United States. But the great strength of the opposition to the Eastern Peniten- tiary lay in three objections, which were never allowed by the opponents of the system to subside. The Boston Society argued as follows : 1. The Pennsylvania system was extravagant in construction, and re- sulted in a serious annual financial loss to the citizens of the State in its peration. 2. The Pennsylvania system produced a higher mortality and morbidity rate than did the Auburn system. 3. The Pennsylvania system produced a higher proportion of insanity than did the Auburn system. These were serious charges. The appeal to the pocketbook has always been potent. If other States were actually making from their prisons on the Auburn type profits above all expenses, while /Pennsylvania's prison produced an annual deficit, this carried an almost irresistible suggestion to legislators in favor of the more economical system. If the Philadelphia prison was more dangerous to life and to mind, then humanity as well as economy justified the adoption of the Auburn plan. In the years from 1829 on, a mass of documentary evidence in annual reports, and deductions therefrom, came into existence. The Eastern Penitentiary was ever on the defensive. From this often confusing, incomplete, and contradictory material we shall now endeavor to determine to what extent the strictures of the Boston Society were tenable. /:: History of American Prisons 237 1. The Pennsylvania system was extravagant in construction and resulted in a serious annual financial loss to the citizens of the State in its operation. The annual reports of the board of inspectors of the Penitentiary- carried no clear financial statements during the period now under discussion. Vague references to the cost of administration appeared occasionally. This failure to publish an annual financial statement seemed a confession of industrial failure, and it was legitimate for the Boston Society to proclaim the probabilities that such was the case. An analysis printed by the State Auditor of Pennsylvania in 1897^ showed the follownig disbursements by the State, in the construction and operation of the Eastern Penitentiary from 1821, when the law establishing the prison was enacted to 1844: Erection and completion of buildings, etc. Furniture, equipment, etc Support and maintenance, inclusive, salaries 1821 $100,000 80,000 60.000 891 .125 4,000 1824 1825 1826 1828 1829 5,666 4,000 1,000 1830 1831 120,000 130.000 60,000 10,000 1833 1835 ■■■ ■i5,'666 10,000 8,000 8.000 1836 1838 1843 1844 $653,125 $50,000 $1,000 The cost of building the Penitentiary, which on completion pro- vided in its 7 radial cellhouses for 586 inmates, was $653,125 up to 1844, inclusive. The extravagance was openly confessed by the friends of the institution. The wall itself cost about $200,000.** The Penitentiary was, according to George W. Smith in 1833 ** the only edifice in the country calculated to convey to American citizens *'the external appearance of those magnificent and pic- turesque castles of the middle ages, which contribute to embellish the scenery of Europe." But in the above financial statement, the annual cost of maintenance and of salaries does not appear. The law of 1829, establishing the government of the Penitentiary, pro- vided that the expense of maintaining and keeping the convicts in the Western and Eastern Penitentiaries should be borne by the " state Prisons, Hospitals, etc., Embracing their History, Finances, etc., Vol. II. C. M. Brush, State Printer, Harrisburg, Pa., 1897. «8 B. P. D. S., p. 827. «» Richard Vaux, p. 56. 238 History of American Prisons counties in which they should have been convicted. These charges are to-day remotely hidden away in inaccessible county documents. A citation by McElwell in 1835 shows the following typical charge for the County of Philadelphia: For support of 114 prisoners, for various periods from January 1st — December 31st, 1834, provisions, clothing, fuel, medicines, etc., at 20 cents a day, and $2.00 a year for bedding $6,104 OO By amount at credit of above prisoners for labor 4,355 77 (Due) $1,748 23. In short, the counties paid the differences between what the con- victs cost the State and what they earned for the State. These deficits do not appear in the annual reports of the Eastern Peniten- tiary with any regularity. The following comments appear in the reports : 1830. The expenses of the institution, not including salaries, have more than been met by the proceeds of the prisoners* industries. When the prison has 300 inmates it will be entirely self-support- ing, including salaries. 1831. Our convicts have, with but a few exceptions, maintained themselves.^ 1832. Profits for the past year have, met all expenses save salaries. We hope for revenue from convicts when building is completed. 1833. Labor is attended with difficulties. Have not i^iet expenses. 1834. Eeformation of the prisoner the all-important thing. Our prison was- never expected to be self-supporting. Had a reasonable grant for a capital fund been made, a different result in our pecuniary affair* might have been shown. 1835. (In the minority report of the investigating committee: '* There has existed a too intimate understanding among indi- viduals, a frightful blending of accounts. '* 1835. Deficiency, $4,998. Want of capital a bother. 1836. Pecuniary affairs never showed so favorably as this year. 1837. Considerable loss in industries. Hard times have caused decreased income. 1839. Our institution cannot expect to be lucrative to the State. 1840. Partial financial statement, showing profit and loss in the industries. The contention of the Boston Prison Discipline Society as to initial extravagance and annual expense was thereby proved. Side by side with the unfortunate financial showing of the Eastern Penitentiary were placed the following statements : '° 1828-1841. Auburn supported itself and paid salaries of officers except in 1837-1838, and except in those two years produced surplus of $69,460.59. 1829-1844. Wethersfield supported itself, including salaries, every year save- six months in 1833, and netted $78,699. 1833-1842. Sing Sing supported itself, including salaries every year save one, and netted $119,527.24. 1831-1842. Massachusetts State Prison supported itself, including salaries^ every year save two, and netted $45,593. 1835-1842. Ohio State Prison at Columbus supported itself, and netted $124,963.78. 70 B. P. D. S., 184.., p. 275. History of American Prisons 239 The comparison of the total cost of construction, and cost per capita, as given by Doctor Julius, was also highly unfavorable to the Eastern Penitentiary : ^^ Pbison Capacity Cost Per capita cost Auhmrn^^ Sing Sing Massachusetts Connecticut N. Y. C. Penitentiary Maryland^' Washington, D.. C Eastern Penitentiary (with wall). (without wall) Philadelphia County Prison New Jersey 700 1,000 300 232 240 318 160 586 686 408 192 $450,000 200,000 86,000 35,000 32,000 184,770 180,000 600,000 400,000 300,000 200,000 $584 42 200 00 286 66 150 86 133 33 581 00 1,125 00 1,023 89 682 00 735 00 1,041 00 Auburn-type prisons were generally built by the labor of prison- ers, reducing the costs of construction by one-fourth to one-third. 2. The Pennsylvania system produced a higher mortality and morbidity rate than did the Auburn system. The theoretical basis for this assumption was the proposition that constant isolation of individual prisoners was unhealthy to the body and conducive to disease. The practical basis of this claim was the yearly death rate, as compared with the death rate of Auburn and of sister prisons. No claim based on the statistics of one year or of a few years has substantial value. There was a comparison habitually made of such short periods by the Boston Society, followed by dogmatic assertions of Pennsylvania's disadvantageous death rate. The most adequate analysis that we have met of the mortality statistics of the Eastern Penitentiary, is found in an article **0n the Effect of Secluded and Gloomy Imprisonment,'' published in 1845.'^ The treatise aimed to show the peculiar susceptibility of the negro prisoners to disease and death. The following were the average death rates of white and colored prisoners : Average number in prison Average whites Average colored Deaths Whites Colored Percentage Mortality Whites Colored Total 1830 31 1831 67 1832 91 1832 123 1834 183 1835 266 1836 360 1837 387 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 21.81 47.75 69.42 89.30 123.58 154.74 202.00 233.00 240.00 245.00 232.00 203.00 212.00 9.19 19.25 21.58 33.70 59.42 108.26 148.00 154.00 161.00 173.00 162.00 144.00 130.00 4.19 4.18 1.44 1.11 .81 1.26 .99 3.00 2.92 .81 3.88 1.97 1.41 10.02 13.52 6.68 4.61 6.74 6.49 11.8 4.62 8.02 4.61 9.03 4.4 .8 2.7 2.6 3.3 4.3 '1 Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 239. "Crawford, App. p. 32, 73 De Metz and Blouet, p. 38. '* Jol. of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy, Vol. I, No. 240 History of American Prisons According to the tabular statement, the average rate of white deaths in the first thirteen years was 2.03. The average rate of colored deaths in the same period was 7.03. F. C. Gray, in ''Prison Discipline in America," gave the average of deaths of whites for the period 1837-1846 as 2.18, and of blacks as 7.77. The Penitentiary officials claimed that in estimating the relative mortality or morbidity of the Eastern Penitentiary as compared with Auburn or Wethersfield, the relative number and character of the colored population of the prison at Philadelphia should be considered. The colored population in the prisons of the United States in 1837 was as follows :^^ Prisons 1 Total Total colored prisoners prisoners 122 2 678 30 92 4 291 24 392 41 387 73 753 One-fifth 190 49 386 154 141 49 76 49 Percentage Auburn Vermont Massachusetts. . . . Ohio Baltimore Sing Sing Wethersfield Eastern Pen New Jersey Washington (City) 1.93 4.41 4.79 8.24 10.45 18.86 20.00 25. 2& 31.28 34 .7& 65.47 As early as 1837 the attending physician at the Eastern Peniten- tiary reported that the prison was burdened with a sickly, inefficient colored population, which by self -abuse became debilitated in mind and body, and diseased, making three-fifths of the prison's mortal- ity .'^* In 1838 the prison had more colored prisoners than any other prison outside the slave-holding State. Pennsylvania was bounded by three slave States. Pennsylvania was the recipient of the discontented free blacks, worthless, slaves and runaway slaves. About forty per cent, of the inmates of the Eastern Penitentiary were colored.'^^ The cases of mental disorder were mainly among the colored prisoners, and caused by masturbation.^* The mortality of the colored prisoners was markedly greater than that of the colored population in Philadelphia. In 1839 the physician stated that the prison received an increas- ingly disproportionate number of colored convicts, which accounted largely for the sickness, mortality and medical expense. In 1842, the colored convicts were described as often diseased beyond recovery, broken down with repeated imprisonment, vicious habits, debauchery, privation and exposure. They were proverbially care- less and improvident, negligent of the simplest duties of the toilet, incapable of the expedients familiar to intelligent men incarcerated like themselves, oppressed with strong animal propensities, and unfortified by moral or intellectual resources.^^ 'B Report of E. P. Inspectors, 1838. '« Report of Inspectors, 1837, p. 12. ■" Report of Inspectors, 1838, p. 10. •^8 Same, 1838, p. 13. ""> Report of Inspectors, 1842, p. 25. History of American Prisons 241 Mortality statistics from the chief prisons of the country in the period under discussion do not permit of such assembling as to be properly comparable. The periods under comparison were gen- erally too brief or unequal periods were compared. We append a number of statistical statements : Prison Period Percentage of deaths Remarks 1829-1842 2.03 7.03 3.9 1.8 1.3 2.2 7.1 1.6 White prisoners Colored prisoners Eastern Pen 1829-1842 1829-1842 1824-1834 1828-1834 Auburn Wethersfield 1824-1834 Virginia 1800-1834 1823-1835 It is apparent that the deaths in the Eastern Penitentiary occurred in a higher percentage, on the whole, than at Auburn, Wethersfield or Massachusetts, but if the negro deaths were elim- inated, the proportion would have been little more than in the more northern prisons. The following table, from the report of the Prison Association of New York for 1845,^^ bears out the preceding statement : Prison Years embraced Prisoners Deaths 9,417 179 10,455 324 3,992 70 1,049 7 728 10 2,523 63 1,062 19 2,365 198 2,462 71 4,215 156 698 9 3,808 147 1,488 42 1,051 8 Average for series Auburn Sing Sing Massachusetts . . New Hampshire Vermont Connecticut . . . . Kentucky Virginia Ohio Maryland Maine Eastern Pen. . . . Western Pen . . . New Jersey 1830-43 1830-43 1830-43 1830-43 1833-38 1830-43 1837-43 1830-43 1836-42 1832-43 1830-37 and 43 183(^43 1830-43 1837-43 lin 52.6 lin 32.2 lin 57 lin 149.8 lin 72.8 lin lin lin lin lin lin lin lin 40 55.9 11.8 34.6 26.3 74.4 25.9 35.5 lin 131.2 However, the death rate is but one factor in an estimation of the health of a prison — and one that can be most seriously affected by a liberal exercise of the pardoning power. The Auburn prison physician reported in 1844 that it had long been a principle upon which pardons were granted, that they were necessary to save life. Twelve pardons were granted at Auburn for that reason during the year in question. Obviously, the death rate in that year was mate- / rially reduced at Auburn, and the procedure of pardoning vitiated any employment of the death rate as an index of healthful or disease-producing conditions within that prison. ** Report of Inspector, p. 93. 242 History of American Prisons But at the Eastern. Penitentiary, also, so many pardons were granted as to affect materially the mortality statistics, in case such pardons were given in any considerable number because of grievous illness : Pardons Given in Eastern Penitentiary 1842-1846 ^^ Ybab Whites Colored 1842 31 15 39 30 26 2 1843 7 1844 ; . . 1845 2 1846 131 11 The several prisons showed considerable variation in the statis- tics of pardons. The following illuminating statement was presented in the report of the Prison Association of New York for 1845.^ The series of years from which the computations were made varied also. Thus, the statistics for Vermont, Kentucky, and Ohio, for instance, covered but a few years, and presented very incomplete and statistically unrepresentative percentages. Prison Series of Years Proportion of pardons to total number of prisoners Auburn 1831-33; 1839-43 1831-43 1 in 20 1 in 22 7 Massachusetts 1830-43; omitting 37, 38 1 in 21 6 New Hampshire 1830-43- omitting 38, 39 41 1 in 11 2 Connecticut 1830-43; omitting 38 1 in 34.6 Vermont 1843 1840, 42 1 in 7 7 Kentucky 1 in 5.4 1830-43 1 in 21 Maine 1830-37; 1842-43 1 in 10 5 Ohio 1839,42 1837-43 1 in 81 Maryland 1 in 18.6 Eastern Penitentiary 1830-43 1 in 28.1 1830-43 1 in 10.9 1839-40; 1842-43 1 in 6.4 As to the health of a prison, who shall determine the factors whereby judgment shall be pronounced ? What is meant by health ? Is the prison to be judged by the average health of the outside population? What is the standard of prison health? Is the State to adopt methods that will prevent in each individual a diminution of his strength and cheerfulness ? In measuring the state of prison health, what credit shall be given to the improvement in health of those admitted in diseased condition ? How long after a prison has been established shall we regard it as having passed the experi- mental stage, and as being open to unqualified criticism? Who 81 Gray. Prison Discipline in America, p. 95. 82 P. 108-110. History of American Prisons 245 shall give the facts regarding the state of health or disease within the prison? Even granting that the prison possesses a qualified medical officer, do not such physicians differ in diagnosis and judgment? What allowances should be made for such differences of opinion ? What should be the judgment as to mental health ? The above questions, asked years later, in 1861, by William Parker Foulke of Philadelphia,®^ show very pertinently the practical impossibility of determining the relative healthfulnes» of a prison, without comprehensive and easily comparable statistics. The Eastern Penitentiary was from the first under the care of studious and apparently competent physicians. Their annual reports were, exceptionally detailed and scholarly, in comparison with those of other prisons. Relatively comprehensive vital statis- tics were published annually. The very care exercised by the attending physician in the interested discharge of his duty would, when interpreted in terms of illness, easily give to uninterested or hostile readers the impression of the apparent presence of abundant illness. Furthermore, the challenge itself of the antagonists of the Pennsylvania system brought out annual reports of the physician in painstaking detail. Doctor Franklin Bache, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was the first attending physician. De Metz and Blouet said of Doc- tor Bache that he was a devoted physician and student. He kept a journal of the most important facts coming under his observation. He kept a history of each prisoner, during his entire imprisonment, including his past life, his conduct, and his condition at discharge. In March, 1837, after an incumbency of eight years, he issued the following vital statistics : Of the 312 prisoners who had been discharged, up to the close of 1836, the results were, at time of discharge: Health improved 78 Health the same as at entrance 164 More feeble, but not sick 17 Health not so good 15 Very much worse 4 Died 33 Suicide 1 312 ''Speaking abstractly, separate solitary confinement is not healthy; an unnatural condition of restraint cannot be favorable to health. Confinement can be relatively healthy, in substituting fewer causes of illness than our population would meet on the outside. The mortality of the inmates I be- lieve to be lower in prison than it would be on the outside. In my seven years the average mortality has been three per cent. A certain number of cases of insanity have presented themselves, some of them existing prior to entrance and continuing; others had given signs of insanity prior to entrance. ' ' " At the time of Doctor Bache 's testimony, the cells in the lower tier were damp; the thickness of the walls caused slower change «3 Foulke. Remarks on Cellular Separation, p. 43. « Annual Report, House of Refuge, 1831. 312 History of American Prisons came a bit of play, necessarily very brief, for those who had finished their morning work early. The labor of the children was, as far as possible, let out to contractors, but the labor was done at the institution. In 1828, the fee given per diem per capita by the contractors was 121/2 cents for 8 hours work: "This method has been adopted as on the whole the most advantageous. Free from losses and risks attendant upon carrying on of trades for the account of the Society it enables the officers of the institution to bestow more time and greater attention on the moral government of the children. ' ' " In 1831, the Society received for the labor of the children $2,953.36. The chief occupations through this decade were the making of brass nails, the manufacturing of cane seats for chairs, whip stocks, as well as weaving, willow working (covers for bottles and demi-johns) and shoemaking.^^ In 1837, there was but four months' labor in the shops, because of the business depression throughout the country. Contractors would not take the boys, even without compensation. In 1839, the boys were reported as being occupied for from 6 hours to 7 hours at some light mechanical employment, and as having produced in the last year a total of $1,787 for the institution. In 1841, 120 of the boys were being employed at from 9 cents to 12% cents a day. The causes of juvenile crime were increasingly studied in the annual reports. The environmental theory of the causes of delin- quency had been discussed, stressed, even before the Refuge was established. Neglected and abandoned children fell naturally into evil ways. Of the first 513 children received by the House of Refuge : 135 had lost their fathers. 40 had lost their mothers. 67 were orphans. 51 were little criminals because of parental neglect or misconduct. 47 were children whose mothers had married again. ^ The name ' ' House of Refuge ' ' had been chosen because it might suggest misfortune only, and not punishment. The Society was conscious of a great distinction between the little inmates and the adult inmates of a prison. "With a criminal, whose corruption is inveterate and deeply rooted, the feel- ing of honesty is not awakened, because the sentiment is extinct. " But it was believed that the feeling still existed in the youthful breast. Griscom said in 1826: **A child might be made quiet and industrious by beating, but it seldom happened that kind-heartedness, morality and intelligence were induced by whipping. " ^ Therefore, on admission the lad was informed that he was not in a prison. The crimes he might have committed before entrance would be forgotten, and his career in the Refuge would depend upon 51 Annual Report, House of Refuge, p. 10. E2 Annual Report, 1835, p. 47. ^ de Beaumont and de Tocqueville, p. 11. " Same, p. 123. » Half Century, p. 120. History of American Prisons 313 his present and future conduct. And, while the lad was getting his training for life, the Society was studying the causes of his delinquency. Intemperance was proclaimed in 1836 one of the chief causes, and described as a hydra-headed monster. The Society found little incentive to crime occasioned by want, but it asked : **If we could but abolish drunkenness, where would we find candidates for admission into our prisons f""" The temptations offered by petty pawnbrokers' shops were another important cause of crime. These shops were '^fences,'* for the receipt of stolen goods. The report advocated the opening of several offices under the direction of a board of managers like those of a savings bank or of the House of Refuge, with rates of interest simply sufficient to meet the operating expenses. Institu- tions, said the report, had already existed in Europe like these. Nearly a century later, the Provident Loan Society, a philanthropic pawnbroking society, was established along similar lines in New York City. In the following years, theatrical performances came in for severe criticism as a demoralizing influence upon the children of the city. Several new minor theatres had opened, and the boys stood in throngs outside the entrances, begging for the ** return checks" that would admit them. Failing these, or stimulated by the gay life within the theatre, children would steal from parents or em- ployers, or get money from the pawnbroking ''fences." The pits in the theatre brought the lads into contact with strangers, pick- pockets and the like. Out of 130 instances of delinquency, 59 were attributed to this cause.^^ There were 2,850 dram shops licensed in the city, a large pro- portion of which were kept open on Sunday. The day was profaned. The penalty for vending strong drink on the Sabbath was practically a dead letter. A natural consequence of intem- perance was the striking degree of licentiousness in both sexes. In 1838, the Society recommended a strengthening of the *' patrol," or police force. Three-fourths of the petty thefts were being committed by minors. Juvenile peddlers should be licensed. There was a most serious lack of attendance at schools ; 4,000 chil- dren under the age of 14 were not going to school. In 1839, the Society discovered another factor in making young criminals, the New York fire department. Children, known as volunteers, were first at the fire houses, on an alarm of fire, and furnished part of the motive power. There was the well-known strife to get to the fire first. There was additional fatigue induced thereby, and the thirst for stimulants. Free access to merchandise in the burning or destroyed buildings, and the total absence of older persons of authority gave to the children almost irresistible temptations. The Society appealed for a paid fire department. 58 Annual Report, 1836, p. 15. 67 Annual Report, 1837, p. 17. 314 History of American Prisons The hawking of papers, and the erratic life of the canal boats, were cited also as leading to crime. There was noted, too, the orphanage of immigrant children, whose parents had died on the voyage across from Europe. Fathers, moreover, were cited who had left their families, and husbands who had gone west to seek work. The children of the Refuge were, more than half of them, foreign-born or the children of foreigners.^^ Many families were being supported largely by the begging methods of their children.^^ **Who, among all the sons and daughters of Adam, if subjected to the same ordeal that tries the morals of these children, would come forth unscathed? It is not always the act alone that decides the turpitude of the offense; there are 10,000 circumstances that come in to heighten or palliate the criminality of the transaction. ' ' ™ The mortality record of the institution was almost always excel- lent. During the first four years there was but one death, and that not from natural causes. The record of illnesses showed what in those days were considered the ' * usual summer maladies, ' ' such as intermittent fevers, dysentery, and in a number of years dis- tressing * ' opthalmia, " which was contagious, and was probably trachoma. In the first ten years of the institution's career, there were but 15 deaths, among 1,478 children, of which ten deaths occurred in the ' * cholera year. ' ' ^^ The resident physician furnished no evi- dence, in his annual reports, of any serious study or concern as to the causes of disease in the institutional inmates. In 1834, the city was creeping up toward the institution, and the opening of streets and the erection of an embankment for the railroad led the physician to state that the effluvia from the stagnant water and the new soil told on the children's health. Bad water from new wells was given as a cause of dysentery. Only 29 deaths occurred in the first 16 years.^ **Many children are sent to the Eefuge who are worn down by disease (the offspring of their own folly), who by careful medical treatment, aided by wholesome restraint, are soon returned to health and a sound constitution. ' ' As already stated, the inception of the House of Refuge was due to private philanthropy, and the financial support of the under- taking came at first from contributed funds. At the meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism on December 19th, 1823, $800 was subscribed, and shortly afterwards $18,000 was readily secured,®^ the city being divided into canvassing districts. For $6,000, the Federal Government ceded, at the junction of Bloomingdale Road and the Old Post Road (the present Madison Square) a site of some four acres, with large barracks, and a house suitable for the superintendent and his family.®* Of this sum, $4,000 was subsequently remitted by Congress. «« Annual Report, 1839, p. 9. •^s Annual Report, 1840, p. 22. <» Annual Report, 1841, p. 13. «i Annual Report, 1834, p. 13. 82 Annual Report. 1840, p. 29. «8 Half Century, p. 57. **Same, p. 74. History of American Prisons 315 The State Legislature in 1825 provided for an appropriation of $2,000 annually for the term of five years, beginning in 1826. In 1829, greater support by the State was obtained, for an annual appropriation of $8,000 was authorized, to be paid out of the sur- plus accruing from the moneys received from the head-tax on immi- grants, and used primarily for the maintenance of the Marine Hospital on Staten Island.^ Furthermore, the excise commis- sioners in the city of New York were directed by law hereafter to pay to the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents $1.50 from every tax received for licensing any tavern, grocer or ** ordinary," or public garden. Theatres and circuses were taxed $500 and $250 respectively, for the benefit of the House of Refuge. In 1831, the excise act was amended, to provide for an appropriation of a definite sum of $4,000 annually. In 1839, a penalty of $500 was placed upon the neglect of a theatre or circus to secure a license, the said sum to be collected by the Society. Theatre and circus licenses were also still to be paid to the Society. A typical financial statement was that of the fiscal year 1831: Income. Expenditures. Prom labor of children $2,953 36 Balance due treasurer $2,242 67 Marine Hospital Fund 8.000 00 Clothing 1,492 50 Tavern licenses 1,250 00 Food 4,807 56 Tax on 4 theatres 2,000 00 Coal, wood, oil, stoves, Excise fund 4,000 00 etc 1,100 76 Sales of chair bottoms, etc. 2,524 82 Furniture, beds, bedding. Cash, donations, subscrip- etc 961 29 tions, etc 281 83 School and hospital 189 12 Balance due 1,046 10 Salaries 3,346 45 Chair shop 2,489 83 Building, repairs, etc 2,582 54 Paid finance committee 6,737 73 Premium, interest Ill 60 Printing annual report, stationery, etc 110 72 Horse, cows, etc 447 84 $26,620 61 $22,056 11 To balance $1,046 10 The Society received in 1834 a donation of $5,000 from the Manumission Society toward the erection of a building for colored children. The lot of such delinquent children in the city was very hard. They had the same temptations to commit crime as did the white children, whereas on the other hand the opportunities for apprenticeship were not open to them. Both the colored parents and their children were densely ignorant. By 1835, the Society had expended about $80,000 for buildings,^ workshops, walls and the like. The new building for the colored children was burned in 1836 by one of the girl inmates, who was promptly sent to State prison. In 1838, a new location was chosen for the Refuge, at Bellevue, on the borders of the East River, at the foot of East Twenty-third Street. Near this location was the «« Laws of 1829, Chapter 302. «> Annual Report, 1835, p. 16. 316 History of American Prisons Almshouse. A new building, 150 feet long and 42 feet wide, three stories in height, was erected for the girls, and the fever hospital was converted into a dormitory for boys.^' In 1839, the board of managers reported that the Refuge supported, schooled, and fur- nished books and clothing at $1.27 per capita per week. This included all expenses, save insurance and repairs to buildings. Further weekly per capitas were announced as follows : ^* Average. Per Capita. 1836-37 243 Children $1.24 1837-38 209 " 1.50 1838-39 229 ♦« 1.15 1839-40 209 * * 1.26 The cost of the new female building, and of the alterations on the fever hospital, shops, stables, wall, etc., was $52,968.64, of which the city of New York paid $40,000. The treasurer's report for 1844 varied little in nature from that of 1831, above cited. Disbursements were very similar, the income being from the following sources: From labor of children: Due 1843, received in 1844 $1,447 29 Due in 1844 5,583 55 $7,030 84 From State Treasury (instead of Marine Hospital Fund) 8,000 00 Licensing of theatres and circuses 3,194 00 Excise fund 4,000 00 Finance Committee 573 15 Keturning now to a consideration of the history of the Boston House of Reformation during the first twenty years of its career, we find that the Boston House of Reformation had its origin in an act of the Massachusetts Legislature, which in the winter session of 1826 gave to the city council of Boston authority to send juvenile delinquents, who under the old law would have been sent to State prison, to such place as the city should provide at South Boston.^ The House of Reformation was in consequence estab- lished some two and one-half miles from the city, near the House of Industry. A commodious building was located within a yard of from 30 to 40 acres. The boys worked in the secured enclosed field at times, under supervision of the superintendent. The House of Reformation and the House of Industry were under the same unpaid board of managers, seven gentlemen from Boston. The early staff consisted of a superintendent, school teacher, and the overseer of the shoeshop. The institution was supported entirely by the city of Boston, at a cost in 1827 of about $3,000."^" The garb of the boys was a plain uniform, a ''jockey "-blue jacket and white trousers, the cost of the suit being about one dollar. We have already seen, in describing the system under Mr. Wells, that the general purpose and administration of the Boston institu- " Annual Report, 1838, p. 6. «8 Same, 1839, p. 42. "» B. P. D. S., 1826, p. 47. TOB. P. D. S., 1827, p. 133. History of American Prisons 317 tion was similar to that of the New York House of Refuge. Boys and girls were received from the courts, trained, and then ''identified." The whole number received from September 20, 1826, to April 30, 1828, was 143, of whom 26 were girls. By 1829, the average number of inmates was 100, with about ten per cent, of them girls. Their commitments were for the following delinquencies : ^^ Stealing 47 Vagabondage 29 Stubborn and disobedient 49 Leading idle life, and being neglected by parents on account of drunk- enness and other causes 11 Wanton and lascivious conduct 4 The average age of the children was 11 years and 10 months. Their employments in the week of January 4th, 1829, were the following : Occupations Boys Girls Hat makinE 16 15 27 15 3 10 1 1 .... "3 Hair work •... Monitors Office 1 HouBe work 1 8 In solitude 1 91 11 By 1831, the annual cost of maintenance had increased to about $6,000. Children to the number of 303 had been received, and 204 discharged, of whom 155 were reported to be doing well. Only two deaths had occurred in 4 years and 9 months, and in 15 months only one case of sickness. In 1832 — the last year of Mr. Wells* superintendency — the need of a new building was felt. Details of the House of Reformation are deplorably few, because no annual reports were published. Practically coinciden tally with Mr. Wells' retirement from the Boston House of Reformation, an *' association of gentlemen of great respectability'' purchased in 1833 Thompson's Island in Boston Harbor, containing about 120 acres of good land, and pro- ceeded to erect on the island suitable buildings for a farm school for the education and reformation of boys exposed to extraordinary temptations, and who were in danger of becoming vicious and dangerous.^^ Another charitable association, the ''Boston Asy- lum," had been incorporated as early as the year 1814 to ''receive, instruct, and employ indigent boys of Boston," and orphans in particular. The Asylum had power to receive those children whose parents neglected them. Places as apprentices were obtained by " B. p. D. S., 1829, p. 192. " B. p. D. S., 1834, p. 836, and Dorothea Dix, p. 92. 318 History of American Prisons the Asylum for the children. Legal power was given to duly- authorized persons to take these children from their neglectful parents.'^^ This institution was the oldest of its class in Massa- chusetts, and one of the oldest in the world/* The Boston Asylum and the new Farm School on Thompson's Island merged in 1835, under the title of ' ' The Boston Asylum and Farm School for Indigent Boys." The society was strictly a private corporation, and received boys who had not yet committed crime. It was believed that no stigma would be attached to Farm School boys. The Farm School was to give to children an open-air and agricultural training, as well as schooling — a program sug- gested in 1831 by Ralph Waldo Emerson, when he was a member of the Boston School Committee, but his recommendation was not acted on."^^ On Thompson's Island there was farming, much exer- cise in the open air, and sea bathing, as well as ** innocent sports." Each boy had a flower garden to cultivate. The boys learned domestic service also. In the summer, they worked one week upon the farm, and passed the next week in school. Men from the city came over on Sunday to address the children. Between 1835 and 1836, about 400 boys were received, and 37 had been apprenticed.^* During the winter, 6 hours of schooling were had each week day, and also from dark until prayers. The boys slept in a dormitory, 60 by 36 feet, the berths being ''double-deckers," one above the other. The supervisor slept in the dormitory.^ The year 's expense sheets cited by the Prison Discipline Society 's report of 1837 are of interest: Food, 110 boys per week $64 43 Salaries, per week: Superintendent and family $19 17 Schoolmaster and family 8 65 Three females at $1.75 5 25 2 men at $15 a month 7 00 One tailor 2 00 One assistant 1 50 $43 57 Fuel, soap, wear and tear, bedding, etc.: Fuel per year $300 00 Soap 75 00 Wear and tear 1 50 Clothing each boy per year 11 00 This new movement — with its broader institutional conception, and its support by private philanthropy — caused diminished public interest in, and a reduction in the number of inmates of, the Boston House of Reformation. From now on, until the end of the period we are considering, the House of Reformation offers no specially interesting features. The children were removed '3 Memorial of Society for Prev. of J. Del., to N. Y. Legislature, in Docs, of House of Refuge, 1832, p. 34. ''* Report, Massachusetts Board of State Charities, 1865, p. 97. 75 Annual Report, Board of State Charities, 1865, p. 102. 78 Dorothea Dix, p. 92. " B. P. D. S., 1837, p. 154. History of American Prisons 319 temporarily in 1833 or 1834 to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, while the House of Reformation was being renovated for use as a House of Correction/* and they were then moved back to one wing of the renovated structure, an entirely unsuitable and cramped arrangement. By 1836, a **new and noble edifice" was occupied by the House of Reformation. The boys were making 850,000 brass nails a day. The girls were sewing and learning housewifery.''^ Six hours of contract labor and four hours of school were the daily program. The contractor paid 10 cents a day for each boy 's labor. The boys not thus occupied picked oakum, netting the institution 10 to 15 cents a day. In 1836, colored children were first admitted. The ages of the inmates ranged from 8 to 21 ; the causes of commitment of the boys were as follows : *^ Larceny 33 Stubbornness and disobedience 21 Vagrancy - 15 Drunkenness 1 The girls were committed for the following causes: Larceny 4 Stubbornness and disobedience 8 Wantonness and lasciviousness 3 Vagrancy 2 Obtaining money under false pretenses 1 About 1841, the House of Reformation became a branch of the House of Industry, and under the same management as the latter institution. The children were kept under constant but mild discipline.^ Their hours were: Labor 6 hours School 4 hours Recreation 2 and % hours Mending, sweeping, cleaning, making beds, etc Sy^ hours Sleep 8 hours The east wing of the building was by 1847 occupied by the **Boylston School," numbering about 100 boys, between the ages of 6 and 13, who were of humble origin, but of promising capacity. They pursued the usual common school branches, and were placed out at the proper time as apprentices. The example of New York and Boston, in establishing separate institutions for juvenile delinquents was soon followed by Philadel- phia. By 1827, $15,000 had been raised by private subscriptions, and the Pennsylvania Legislature had voted $40,000 for the completion of a House of Refuge.®^ The Refuge was opened on November 29th, 1828, and received the first inmates in December.^^ More than $86,000 was ultimately expended in construction and '«B. p. D. S., 1834, p. 836. '• Same, 1836, p. 53. 80 Same. 1837, p. 153. 81 Dorothea Dix, 1847, p. 90. 82 B. P. D. S., 1827, p. 136. 83 B. P. D. S., 1829, p. 324. 320 History of American Prisons outfitting.** The institution was situated on a hill near Philadel- phia, and was a large building with surrounding gardens. The building cost $38,035, the main building being 92 feet long, the center of the building containing a room for library, and for the use of the managers and the families of the institution officers. The wings of the structure comprised the dormitories for boys and girls, and several large school rooms. Separate cells (called dormitories), were provided for entire separation at night, the dimensions being 7 feet long, by 4 feet wide (slightly larger than the cells at Auburn Prison, and much smaller than those at the Eastern Penitentiary). Each cell was furnished with a small bedstead and shelf, w^as well lighted, and well ventilated, and exposed at all times to supervision. The workshops were located in an extensive area, surrounded by a high wall. A hospital and a chapel were provided. The first annual report showed 57 boys and 23 girls as inmates. The trades were : Boys. Girls. Bookbinding. Sewing. Basket weaving. Washing. Wicker working. Ironing. Tailoring. Mending. Carpentry. Cooking. Shoemaking. General housework. The daily program was : 4.45 Kising bell. 5.00 Dormitories opened. 5.00-7.00 Morning worship and school. 7.00 Breakfast. 7.30 Work. 12.00 Dinner, then a lecture or talk. 1.00 Work (y2 hour of play, after completion of work in afternoon.) 5.00 Supper. 5.30 School. 7.45 Evening prayers, then bed. The contractors paid I214 cents a day for 8 hours labor of the able-bodied children, which was a sum entirely inadequate for maintenance. The baleful effects of a childhood passed without schooling were emphasized by the Pennsylvania Society for Pro- motion of Public Schools in 1830, when it asserted that there were at least 400,000 persons in Pennsylvania, between the ages of 5 and 14, and that of these not 150,000 were in all the schools of the State.«5 Juvenile cases fell off materially in the Philadelphia courts after the establishment of the House of Eefuge. This applied to the white children only. Colored children, who were not admitted to the House of Refuge, continued to come before the courts in large numbers. The managers early found that the younger children were far more receptive to reformatory treatment, and urged in their first annual report that only children under 16 should be admitted. 8*,Tulius. Sittleche Zusbaende. Vol. II, p. 359. s« Mary Carpenter, " Juvenile Delinquents," 1853, p. 210. History of American Prisons 321 In the same year we find the first record of a benefaction to a private institution for delinquents, Frederick Kohne leaving to the House of Refuge $100,000 in his will. In 1831, the receipts were: Life and annual subscriptions, donations, and from labor of inmates $4,434 98 County treasury 10,000 00 $14,434 98 Expenses : Provisions, clothing, fuel, salaries, repairs, interest $15,605 86 The deficit was therefore, in this year, $1,170.84. The city of Philadelphia gave from $10,000 to $14,000 a year in support of the institution.^^ The statistics of population for the year 1831 were : *^ Received Boys Girls Total From courts and magistrates . . . 87 24 111 Returned after escape 1 Returned after indenturing 11 99 24 123 By indenture 39 6 7 14 3 2 2 10 8 4 3 49 By age 14 Not proper subjects 11 Returned to friends ; 17 Sent to almshouse 3 Sent to sea 2 Died 2 73 25 98 113 44 157 The lads were indentured more to farmers than to any other occupation. The girls all learned * ' housewifery. ' ' The average age of the boys was 14i/^, of the girls 15, on reception. The time of discharge was at majority.®^ The managers of the Philadelphia institution stated in 1833 their attitude regarding juvenile delin- quency. Juvenile delinquents, and particularly those of tender age, had not acquired habits of crime, but were on the way to acquiring them. Their first offenses were to be considered symptomatic, showing temptations, evil counsel, bad examples, or parental neglect. The purpose of the establishment was essentially parental, and children were bound out from the Refuge without stigma and without difficulty. Masters took them into their homes and placed them on a footing with the other apprentices. Masters, however, would not take the oldest boys, because there would not be sufficient time left before the boys' majority to afford compensation for the unrequited expenses of the earlier period of apprenticeship. An «8 Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 360. 8^ B. P. D. S., 1832, p. 578. 88 Julius. Sittleche Zusbaende, Vol. II, p. 362. ' 11 322 History of American Prisons * * incorrigibly vicious ' ' boy was not bound out. The Kef uge was not a prison, nor really a place of punishment. The administration was not in any sense vindictive. The managers in this year announced a new cause of juvenile corruption — the children's theatres, in which the players were minors of both sexes. These show-houses were established in obscure places, and were conducted with unlimited license. They were visited by children in stealth, and often the entrance fees were dishonestly acquired. It was regarded as a notable fact that in the ** cholera year" of 1832 in Philadelphia, not a single case of cholera developed in the House of Refuge. CHAPTER XXV THE STATE OF PRISONS IN 1845 The year 1845 marks an especially convenient time at which to pause and summarize the state of American prisons, and to conclude this study of the formative era of American penology. It was in the year 1844 that the Prison Association of New York was founded, bringing into the field of prison reform an organization of repre- sentative citizens of New York, who adhered to neither the Auburn nor to the Pennsylvania system, but sought to understand the essentials of adequate prison management, and also to effect the betterment of prison conditions. In the year 1845, the Massachu- setts Society in Aid of Discharged Convicts was formed, which co-operated with the State Agent in the relief of prisoners released from prison. In 1844 and 1845 appeared the first two editions of Dorothea Lynde Dix 's * ' Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline , in the United States," an acute analysis of prison conditions for the general reader. The Pennsylvania Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of Public Prisons inaugurated in 1845 the publication of a quarterly magazine, thus abandoning their passive and almost sacrificial attitude toward the vicious and persistent attacks upon the Penn- sylvania system, made in the annual reports of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, and particularly by the Reverend Louis Dwight, its militant and highly biased secretary. It was in this period that for the first time Mr. Dwight was called severely to account for his constant championship of the Auburn system, and for his bitter opposition to anything that came out of the Pennsylvania system. The first serious attack from within the Boston Society was being led by Doctor S. G. Howe and Charles Sumner, who challenged not only the wisdom and the judgment of Mr. Dwight, but also his intellectual honesty and his veracity. In 1846, the first international gathering of those interested in or specializing in penology was held at Frankfort on the Main. The world 's attention was being co-operatively directed to the problems of prisons. In the antipodes, the daring experiments of Maconochie, with self-government in limited measure and with a broad inter- pretation of the honor system, had already been tried out. Obermaier in Bavaria had accomplished extraordinary results through trusting to the honor of prisoners. In short, a distinct penological literature was being built up, less in America than in Europe. Germans, French, Belgians and English were plunged into both academic and practical controversies over the relative merits of the Auburn and the Pennsylvania systems, and the battle was being fought on the other side in a far more scholarly and [323] \ 324 History of American Prisons thorough manner than had been the case in the land of their origin. In our own country, principles had become fairly well estab- lished; methods were fairly well fixed; traditions had already formed. It was now more a period of development of the details of prison discipline rather than one of hardy experimentation. Terms of daily use within institutions had grown definite. Prison life was a concrete fact ; prisons had come to stay ; new institutions were springing up in the newer States, and the daily routine of prison life was made up of fixed and carefully regulated hours, tasks and motions. The roots of prison methods were striking well down into the soil of customs and traditions. In short, in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, the three centers of interest in prison reform, these movements above-mentioned marked the end both of the experimental period and of the one-man domination of the prison reform field, which since 1826 had been virtually ruled by Mr. Dwight, through his tireless controversial activity, his visits to institutions, his pamphleteering, and the wide circulation of the Boston Society's annual reports, which had circulation not only throughout the United States, but among the prison reform groups of Europe. The new era would mean a searching study of existing prison conditions, and a definite unwill- ingness to receive any longer predigested facts. The initial annual report of the Prison Association of New York exhibited a scholarly tendency to go to the root of all available facts. The new era marked the end of the dominant attention given to administrative details by students of the subject, and therefore marked the begin- ning of the period of fact-study, of the evolution of broad principles, and of the independent thinking of different groups, culminating within a quarter century in the coming of Enoch C. Wines, of Zebulon R. Brockway, of Frank Sanborn, and of the first meeting of the National Prison Association in Cincinnati in 1870, after which grew rapidly the movement for the establishment in the United States of the reformatory system of treatment of young men, initiated in the New York State Reformatory at Elmira in 1876. This decade from 1840 to 1850 is therefore the period of the rise of a third conspicuous wave in prison reform. The first period had extended from 1787 to approximately 1820, and it was marked by the establishment, in 1787, of the Philadelphia Society for the Alleviating of the Miseries of Public Prisons, the opening of the Walnut Street Prison in 1790, and the establishment of the State Prison in the city of New York in 1797. The first period had been marked also by the philanthropic interest and activity of men like Benjamin Rush, Caleb Lownes, William Bradford of Philadelphia and Thomas Eddy of New York. The Walnut Street Prison in Philadelphia standardized the construction and administration of the first State prisons, as to night-rooms, separate punishment cells for solitary confinement, prison labor, compensation of prisoners, silence at work, boards of inspectors, officials, etc. Out of the example of the Philadelphia prison developed, in close imitation. History of American Prisons 325 the first State prisons of other States : New York, 1796 ; Virginia, 1800 ; Massachusetts, 1804 ; Vermont, 1808 ; Maryland, 1811 ; New Hampshire, 1812; Ohio, 1816, and Auburn prison in New York, 1816, in its first architectural plan. This earliest period brought the beginnings of a systematic prison reform movement in the founding of the Philadelphia Society for the Alleviating of the Miseries of Public Prisons in 1787, followed by immediate and personal attention to these *' miseries. ' * There ensued considerable prison reform propaganda, through pamphle- teering by the Society 's members, and through actual participation in the administration of the Walnut Street Prison. The first **sag" in this earliest period was not slow in coming, occurring as early as 1800 in Philadelphia, and in the case of the other prisons within a few years of their openings. Although many principles and methods evolved by the Philadelphia philanthropists were marked by common sense, the commingling of the prisoners in the large night-rooms, added to the inevitable congestion of the prison population, as the State 's population increased, precipitated the downfall of the first prison system. The prisons reverted quickly to the abhorrent conditions of idleness, debauchery, extor- tion and extravagance that had marked the local prisons of the pre-reform period, antedating the founding of the Walnut Street Prison. In Philadelphia and New York, outraged public opinion led to violent protests, and also by 1820, to the possibility of a return to the sanguinary and public capital and corporal punish- ments of the earlier days, for which prisons were to have been a substitute. The second wave of prison reform swept over the Eastern and Middle Atlantic States during the twenties of the nineteenth century. This ten-year period from 1820 to 1830 was marked by the evolution of the two separate systems of prison discipline, destined to become subjects of heated discussion and intense rivalry. The period also brought with it the erection of the four most conspicuous prisons in early American prison history — the reno- vated prison at Auburn, from 1819 on ; Sing Sing, known as Mount Pleasant, in 1825; the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersfield, in 1827 ; and the Eastern. Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, from 1829 on. The desperate moral and physical conditions in the old prisons at the end of the first period (1790-1820) led easily to the extreme penological antidotes for the abuses and excesses of the past, and there developed the two prison systems above mentioned, those of Auburn and of Pennsylvania. The basis of both systems was the prohibition at all times of verbal or other communication between prisoners. The fundamental difference in the systems lay in the methods employed to secure such separation of prisoners from each other. The Eastern Penitentiary housed its prisoners in large cells, one in a cell, and never allowed them to leave those cells save for extreme illness or on discharge. The Auburn system housed its prisoners separately, but in small cells, and brought the prisoners 326 History of American Prisons together in the workshops during the day under strictest rules of absolute silence. The Pennsylvania system required its inmates to work in their cells, apart from each other. In construction, therefore, the two systems differed. The Auburn plan meant primarily a prison cellhouse of several tiers of small cells, built back to back, encased in an enveloping building. The cells were incredibly small. The Pennsylvania plan required rooms of adequate size for uninterrupted occupancy. The second period of prison reform, just outlined, brought, as did the first era, the establishment of a prison reform society, this time in Boston — the Prison Discipline Society, conducted under the militant and often highly biased leadership of the Reverend Louis Dwight. Arguing successfully on the grounds of the greater economy, safety and simplicity of the Auburn system, and on the appealing ground of the constant utilization of the inmates at productive labor, the Boston prison society played a dominant role in persuading the States of the Union, almost one after the other, to adopt the Auburn plan. Only in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Rhode Island did the Pennsylvania plan find adoption, and in the two latter States the system was abandoned, at least in part, within a few years. In the succeeding decade, 1830 to 1840, there developed no such ''sag" and failure as had marked the first period. The time was one of experiment and development, but there had now been found a fundamental basis upon which to build. The prisons had become ''going" institutions. The first traditions, so essential in the con- duct of a well-systematized institution, were being fixed. The proponents of each system, at Auburn and Philadelphia, were claiming signal success in their efforts to establish a thorough- going prison discipline. The Auburn system speedily reduced the expenses of maintenance to the State, and many prisons actually began to produce surpluses. The silence, rigid discipline and security were a wonderfully grateful relief to the harassed civic nerves of many States, after the excesses of the previous disorgan- ized and debauched prisons. On the other hand, the champions of the Pennsylvania system praised similarly their results, and particularly the complete absence of any contamination of prisoners J^hrough physical association. But, along with the acknowledged successes of these systems, there developed serious faults, visible as time went on. The self- supporting or surplus-producing prisons of the Auburn type incurred, or ran the danger of incurring, the angry hostility of the "mechanics," who found themselves faced by the competition of prison-made goods. Particularly in New York was the claim violently made by the labor groups that the competition of the prisons was unfair and damaging. Furthermore, the unbroken silence in Auburn-type prisons could, in most instances, be main- tained only by the inflicting of severe corporal punishments. Flog- gings became so atrocious in Auburn, and especially in Sing Sing, as to stagger public opinion when finally revealed. The machine- History of American Prisons 327 like regularity of prison life under the Auburn system led also to the handling of prisoners in the mass. Efforts at reformation were sacrificed to the struggle of the State to make money out of the prisons. The taxpayers were led to concern themselves primarily with the question whether the prisons cost the State money, or brought money to the State. Prisons on the Pennsylvania plan were not without weaknesses. Far more expensive to construct, and far more costly to maintain because of the impossibility of permitting the associated labor of convicts, the Eastern Penitentiary was with increasing frequency charged with a higher rate of deaths, disease and insanity than was alleged to occur in prisons of the Auburn type. Punishments were milder, to be sure, because most infractions of rules in prison arose from the contact of prisoners with each other, or from the desire to communicate. Hence arose the belief, by 1840, that the prisons were failing to fulfill their earlier promises. Particularly disturbing were the scandals that broke out in New York through the disclosures of appalling cruelties at Sing Sing Prison early in the fourth decade of the century. Out of this, and other serious conditions, grew the third wave of prison reform, dating from approximately 1840. The visits of Dorothea Lynde Dix to prisons in the early forties revealed especially the deplorable and ignored conditions in the secondary prisons, such as jails, workhouses and houses of correc- tion, and also the wretched negligence of most States toward their insane prisoners. Moreover, the Prison Association of New York came into exist- ence in 1844 through the suggestion of a humane member of the board of managers of Sing Sing Prison, who sought private help for discharged prisoners whom the State released with a bare pittance, after a miserable and disintegrating prison life. From this proposed field of activity, the Prison Association quickly swept on to a general concern about prison conditions, and about the plight of prisoners before, during and after imprisonment in cor- rectional institutions. At the same time, the Quakers of the Philadelphia Society threw off the pacifistic tolerance that had inhibited any aggressive resistance to the attacks of the Boston Society upon the Pennsylvania plan, and started propaganda of their own, for their system in particular, and for a philosophical attitude toward the problems of prison reform in general. This third era, in the midst of which our study of prison adminis- tration closes, affords us therefore an especially favorable point from which to attempt a more general survey of prison conditions a half-century after the opening of the first State prison on Walnut Street. We find the two great systems, namely, the silent system of Auburn, and the separate system of Pennsylvania. The best types of the separate system were the Eastern and the Western Penitentiaries of Pennsylvania. In the secondary institutions, the separate system had been best developed in the county prisons in Dauphin County, and Chester County, Pennsylvania, and in the 328 History of American Prisons Moyamensing prison in Philadelphia County. The best types of the separate system were Auburn, Wethersfield, and Charlestown, Massachusetts, and perhaps Baltimore. The silent system was also well represented in the county jails of Hartford and New Haven in Connecticut, and in the House of Correction at South Boston in Massachusetts. The State prisons were practically the only correctional institu- tions in which management had actually developed into system. County and local prisons were almost without exception the centers of callous, unsystematic and ignorant confinement of inmates. In the State prisons themselves, there were, varying degrees of effi- ciency and humanity. Industrial productiveness was found, under the Auburn plan, coupled often with bloody atrocities and moral corruption, as at Sing Sing. The basic principles of the two sys- tems, in the prisons of Auburn and Pennsylvania, were not of themselves inhuman, in the light of the time, and an alleged, though subordinate, purpose of the prisons was reformation ; but the modes of daily operation were conditioned by the nature of the administrative authorities. Striking differences in methods of management prevailed. In the House of Correction at South Boston, not a blow had been struck upon a prisoner, it was claimed, for over a decade, and no weapons were carried by keepers. The Connecticut and Massachusetts State prisons were operated with a minimum of corporal punishment. On the other hand. Sing Sing Prison gave, in some months of 1843, as many as 3,000 lashes a month. The larger the prisons, the more likelihood, and apparently the more necessity, there was of rigorous punishments, because of the far greater difficulty of preserving constant order and silence. But the trend of all prisons was strongly toward the reduction of the use of the lash, and toward an increase in the relatively more humane solitary confinement in dark cells. The ''shower bath'* or ducking came into more general use. The ''gag" was seldom used, but at Sing Sing, where the lash was not used upon women, the gag was sometimes employed upon women; straight- jackets were employed upon refractory prisoners. Reduction of meals to a bread and water diet was common. Public opinion upheld corporal punishment, but not its develop- ment to an extraordinary degree. Floggings were customary outside of prison, in the navy, the schoolhouse and the home. Complete abandonment of similar practices in the prisons was not advocated, and yet certain wardens prided themselves upon their ability to get along without the use of the ' ' cat. ' ' Even Dorothea Dix conceded that for especially refractory cases the lash had to be used as a last resort. Security against escape by inmates, and productiveness of labor of inmates, were the two main demands of the law-making and appropriation-making bodies. The self-supporting prison was praised, and the prison that returned a surplus was held up to public admiration. Encouragement of this attitude of the public History of American Prisons 329 mind was fostered regularly by the Prison Discipline Society's reports from Boston. The achievement of these two ends led, in the prisons operating under the silent system, to the constant rigorous guarding of inmates, and to a constant driving of the inmate forces to the one end of turning out the maximum of commercially valu- able products. The two chief phases of prison administration, therefore, were those connected with security and industry. The public must be protected from the criminal, and the taxpayer must be protected from any unnecessary drain upon his pocketbook. Security against criminals was to be obtained by imprisonment, by severity of treatment, and by the deterrence of potential crim- inals on the outside. All phases of imprisonment were therefore surrounded with factors to excite dread and horror. Public opinion branded the criminal as an outcast, a definitely different person from the great body of law-abiding citizens. Religious dogmas proclaimed the eternal damnation of the wicked — and the criminals were all wicked. Hence, the naturalness of severe and even terrible treatment of criminals. The prisons were built according to forbidding, and often monu- mental, architecture. The facade of the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania was at the time of its construction the most imposing architectural effort of its kind in the United States. High walls surrounded almost every prison, save Sing Sing, and the walls were patrolled by armed guards, who would shoot to kill. The public saw nothing of what passed inside the prison, save when admitted at regular hours upon payment of a small fee, which permitted them to gaze upon the inmates as upon the members of a human menagerie. Security also demanded heavy masonry in prison buildings. Stone was the common material of construction. Cells, in prisons of the Auburn type, were ''constructed for the one great object of securely packing, in the most economical manner, the greatest num- ber of human beings in the smallest possible space." The most elementary sanitary requirements were neglected — but the prison- ers were thus held safe against escape. The solid masonry of the cells sweated trickling streams of moisture on damp mornings, after a night of unventilated and noxious imprisonment of hundreds of human beings in catacomb-like ''apartments," 7 feet long, 3 feet 6 inches wide, and 7 feet high. But society was thus protected against the escape of wild criminals. The darkness within the cells was such as to bar the reading of books when day-light had passed — but the intervening bars prevented the outbreak of the enemies of society. The gross ignorance of the age as to the prin- ciples of ventilation led to miserably unaired, disease-breeding, clammy cells — but the dangers of escape were thus minimized. The necessity of perpetual security led also to the government of the prisoners at all time en masse. All movements were made in numbers, when possible. At all times, when prisoners were in groups, as in the workhouses, the supervision was vigilant and 330 History of American Prisons unrelenting. Separation of the individual prisoner from any possi- ble contact with his neighbor was regarded as imperative. Hence the rule of perpetual silence. Hence the feeding of the prisoners in their cells. Some prisons, as in the case of Auburn, used a common messhall, but this was considered to be fraught with greater danger, and even in these messhalls, the benches were so arranged that all prisoners faced in the same direction. No conversation was toler- ated, and severe punishment attended any attempt at communica- tion. But talking was never stamped out. Mass movements of prisoners were reduced to a minimum. Humans were driven like animals. The march to and from the workshops and the cells was the only exercise had by the inmates. The idea of recreation had not penetrated into most prisons in any form. In prisons on the ''separate" plan, like the Eastern Penitentiary, this mass movement naturally did not occur. Exercise — regarded as necessary in the Eastern Penitentiary — was had in the little separate yards attached to the ground-floor cells, or in adjacent cells on the upper floor. But the New Jersey State Prison, the erection of which began in Trenton in 1833, was without provision for exercise yards. The guarding of prisoners in institutions of the separate type was far easier than in the Auburn-type prisons. The escape of a prisoner from any prison, in the era from 1825 to 1845, was extremely rare. Security and intimidation demanded, further, the inhibition of any special mental activity of a secular nature. The prisoner was barred almost absolutely from knowledge of the outside world. It had practically ceased to exist for him when he entered the prison. Thus would he fail to have disturbing influences to plot escapes; thus would he appreciate the dire fact that the wages of sin were a living death ; thus would the world outside understand the horrible consequences of crime. No letters reached the prisoner. Rarely were his most intimate friends allowed to visit him. Never might he talk with his visitor without the presence of an eavesdropping guard. Never was news of secular events allowed to penetrate into the prison. The prison world was cut off from the world outside. At long intervals the prisoner might write to a member of his family, but no return letters were allowed him. In short, two test questions applied to all activities of the prisons of the Auburn type. Is the prison safe ? Is the prison economical ? Economy built cells without running water or water-closets. The bare necessities of existence were admitted to the cells, although the inmate passed approximately fourteen hours a day cooped up in these extremely small places. Beds were of wood, and infested often with vermin. Sheets and pillow-cases were rare. Blankets were filthy and insufficient. Heating was done mainly by stoves in the corridors. Extremes of temperature were inevitable in winter. Some cells were hot and stifling, and some were cold, frigid and wholly uncomfortable. The windows in the prisons being closed to save the heat, ventilation conditions were frequently History of American Prisons 331 intolerable. Prisons of the Pennsylvania type were generally heated by iron tubes containing hot water or steam from a central source. The inmate in prisons of the Auburn type suffered from a per- petual round of inconveniences. The absence of running water in his cell reduced his chances of adequate washing of face, hands and body. Intensely disagreeable body odors were a frequent cause of complaint in the cell houses. The water supply in most prisons was quite insufficient. Sing Sing Prison never had pure water in this period. The Rhode Island State Prison allowed a warm bath once in three months. Occasionally, when the prison might be located on the water front, as at Sing Sing or Charlestown, Massachusetts, the inmates were allowed at intervals a plunge. Inmates washed in the shops. No water was carried into the cells save for drinking purposes — and very little of that. Bath tubs were rare in prisons. Crude shower baths were sometimes available. In the Eastern Penitentiary, however, in addition to cold water bathing in the cells, where each prisoner had a tub, a wash-basin, soap and towels, there was provision for a warm bath once a week by steam-heated shower baths in separate cells. In most prisons of the Auburn type, inmates ate in their cells. The food was served necessarily luke-warm or cold. The cells be- came infested with vermin, because of the accumulated dirt and crumbs. Most disagreeable odors became common. There was little airing of bedding or clothes, and less washing of them. This was the day of crude lights. Individual cells of prisons were not lighted. Candles were allowed in the Eastern Peniten- tiary as a privilege, or when additional labor had to be done after dark. Oil lights hanging in the corridors in Auburn-type prisons, made the darkness almost more visible. Hence the custom of work- ing prisoners from sun-up to sun-down, six days in the week, the only alternative in the prisoner's life being the idlness of the cell. Those who could read, and desired to, found their only available time the intervals of meal-times during the day, and the Sundays, unbroken save for the chapel services or Sunday school. The libraries of the prisons, when existing at all, possessed a few moral and often antiquated volumes. The prisoner's clothing was crude, but generally sufficient, al- though little attention was given to his garb. The inmates, marched at times of necessity through rain and snow to and from the shops and cells, had no changes of garments. They dried their wet garments in the narrow cells, or in the corridors, with resulting dampness and intolerable odors. A distinctive garb was worn, whether of alternate black and white stripes, or a parti-colored costume. For a distinctive mark, the half of the head was sometimes shaved. The chief positive daily activity of the prisons was the manu- facturing of products for sale in the open market. All prisons aimed to reduce by this means the costs of maintenance and improvements. The most lucrative method of employing convicts 332 History of American Prisons was through the letting out of the labor of the convicts to contrac- tors who paid a fixed sum for the labor of the inmates, supervised the manufacturing, furnished the materials, and received the fin- ished product. Another method of utilizing the labor of inmates was by the piece-price system, whereby the prison sold the completed article to the contractor at a stipulated price. Some prisons sold their own products in the open market, by what is now called the State-account system. Kentucky's State prison was leased out to one man to operate, and later to a firm. The prisons of the Auburn type showed higher earning capacity, due to the utilization of the inmates in workshops. From 1828 to 1841, Auburn Prison produced enough to support itself, pay all salaries of officers, except in 1837-38, and except in those two years produced a total surplus of $69,460. Sing Sing, Massachusetts, Ohio and Connecticut made very favorable financial showings, and, on the other hand, the "separate prisons" were far from self- supporting, a fact that was forever ''rubbed in" publicly by the reports of the Boston Prison Discipline Society. The Eastern Penitentiary failed even to publish annual financial statements. Serious objections, from the economic standpoint, were raised in the State of New York during the thirties and early forties against contract labor of prisoners, but even there with little effect upon the practice. The ' ' mechanics, ' ' the forerunners of organized labor, objected on the ground that contract labor lowered prices, created an oversupply in certain industries, established unfair competition, and crowded out free labor into other occupations. Also it was claimed that the prisons favored with considerable financial profits in this manner the lucky contractors, gave opportunity for favor- itism in the letting of contracts, taught convicts trades to the detriment of free mechanics, and developed apprentices out of the criminal classes. Successive legislative committees in New York tried to argue away or to gloss over the issues. It was held that the competition of prison labor with free labor was much overestimated; that the prison trades were few which competed ; that the mechanics them- selves had the opportunity to bid for contracts ; that the mechanics desired to stifle all industry in prison (which was in a way the truth) ; that the public in general demanded that prisons pay their way; that inmates should learn in prison to be self-supporting, in order not to revert later to crime ; and that idleness would be the worst and most inhuman treatment of prisoners. The mechanics, it was said with reason, offered no practical constructive suggestions in line with the humane treatment of prisoners, and proposed either ira.ii.'iiii.ui.iitiun. which was impraciicabie. or the abandonment of pracT.i('..^.!iv an inausrry ana the setimsr-up of creneral idleness and consequent disorder and aemoralization. Concessions to the mechanics were made in the State of New York, first in 1835 by restricting somewhat the variety of prison occupations, making the letting of contracts more public, and limiting? the number of convicts to a trade. Foreign industries of History of American Prisons 333 silk-growing and weaving were to be introduced. No material change occurred, however. Again in 1845, a new prison was estab- lished in Dannemora in the Adirondacks, not far from Plattsburg, called Clinton Prison, where only mining operations were to be conducted, as non-competitive with the mechanics. But in other"] States than New York, the broad problems of contract labor, later to be among the most complicated and troublesome of prison problems, had hardly risen by 1845. At this time, the prisons had been in successful financial operation but relatively few years, and . the pressure of convict labor was not yet an acute issue. J The general public knew little of prison conditions and problems. The abolition of convict labor was little urged for any reason of its competition with free labor, and for its injustice to prisoners. To-day, in 1921, convict contract labor is opposed chiefly because it is a form of slavery — a method of selling the actual daily labor of prisoners in servitude to the highest bidder, and for private gain. It is opposed, also, because it brings into the prison the contractor, who to an extent divides authority over the convicts with the prison executive. The strong argument of the present day, that prisoners are not duly recompensed for their labor within prison walls, was not urged in 1840 to 1845. There was a total lack of interest on the part of the prison reformers and the public in any regular wage- scale compensation of prisoners, for the following reasons: It was held that punishment, to be sufficient, must not involve any remuneration for the suffering endured. The measure of punishment once defined, there should be no alleviating circum- stances to that punishment. Since the prisoner had not been willing to work honestly for a living with the inducement of wages on the outside, he should work involuntarily within prison for no wages. Otherwise, there w^as the same incentive to work inside the prison as on the outside, and the deterrent effect of the prison would be lost. The convict was sent to prison ''at hard labor." Few suggestions of financial compensation to prisoners are to be found in the history of this period. Not since the earliest years of the first State prisons — Walnut Street, Newgate in New York, and Baltimore — had substantial efforts been made to establish a wage- scale in prison. The prisoner's time was forfeit to the State. His labor was a part of that forfeit. He was the slave of the State. He had forfeited citizenship. He was an outcast. Furthermore, grave doubt prevailed as to the desirability of any sizeable sums accruing to the convict on his discharge from prison. Such money would aid dissolute criminals, after discharge, to perpetuate further crimes,^ and would enable them to exist without the immediate application to work and to the earniner of an honest livelihood, that was essential It reieasea convicts were not to oe quicKiy lempced vm^'iL into crime. Therefore the State was not interested in establishing regu- lar compensation for labor performed, but paid to the prisoner on discharge a pittance of a few dollars to enable him to reach the community from which he had been committed. 334 History of American Prisons However, the necessity felt by the contractors to speed up the convicts led early to the establishment of the ''overstent" or over- stint for overtime work. This bonus, paid to the convicts who thus did extra work after the completion of their stint, was of very varying amount. Prisoners left their institutions with from a few dollars to several hundreds, according to ability and length of imprisonment. There was relatively little inducement to prisoners to lay by large earnings through over-stint. No commissaries were maintained, at which inmates might make purchases to supplement the prison food or equipment. Two principles in particular gov- erned the administration of the prisons on the Auburn plan. First, that force should be recognized as the only successful means of government, and secondly, that all prisoners should be treated alike. Therefore, no privileges of purchase, or of favoritism through the possession of money, should be set up. Moreover, the connection between the prisoner and his family that had been left behind was almost severed, and he had little to remind him of his social obligation to contribute toward their support. Indeed, he had practically no responsibility, and the whole prison regime was seemingly devised to eliminate or crush out any feeling of individual responsibility within him, save to obey the rules that were made, not for him alone, but for all. However, compensation of another kind, for good conduct and for industry, became practically a system in all American prisons. I refer to the granting of pardons to prisoners by the governor of the State. The reasons for such granting ranged from legitimate rewards for industry and good conduct to the responses to political machinations, or to the apparent necessity of clearing out the con- gested prisons in order to give a place to newcomers. The abuse of the pardoning power had been emphasized, criticised and denounced for more than a half century, at the end of the period that we have been considering. The pardon was the goal or the bait, ever before the prisoner's eyes. One in every nine persons was pardoned out of Auburn Prison between 1824 and 1829; one in 18 from the Virginia State Penitentiary between 1820 and 1829 ; one in 17 from the Massachusetts State Prison between 1820 and 1829, and one in 15 from the State Prison of New Hampshire in the same period. Statistics of given intervals in the thirties and forties of the nineteenth century showed wide variations in these acts of execu- tive clemency. The larger prisons, like those of Auburn, Sing Sing and Charlestown, showed pardons in ratios of from 1 to 20, to 1 to 35. Vermont, on the other hand, pardoned in 1843 1 to every 8; Kentucky in 1840 and 1842, 1 to every 5; Ohio in 1839 and 1843, 1 to every 11. The average of all prisons, and of many differ- ent intervals between 1830 and 1843, showed a pardoning of 1 inmate in every 19. Since this method of discharging was not the only method of release, but was employed in addition to regular release through expiration of sentence, it played an important part not only in reducing the prison population, but also in furnishing an incentive to the prisoner to good conduct and good work. History of American Prisons 335 The average length of sentences to State prison was considerable. Taking the years 1839, 1840 and 1841 as a basis for statistics, we find the average length of sentences ranged from 2 years and 5 months in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania to 7 years and 3 months in the Connecticut State Prison. The Prison Association of New York showed by statistics in 1846 the great disparity of sentences for the same offense, but regarded this as not so great an evil as the length of many of the sentences. The average length of sentences, from the figures of 18 prisons, and applying to the period between 1840 and 1846, was 4 years, 11 months and 18 days. The shortest sentence was three months. The longest sentence was of course for life. The customary minimum sentence was for one year. Sentences from 10 to 42 years were shown to be the maximum definite sentences, outside of life sentences in the several prisons. There was no exceptionally large number of life-term inmates in prison, partly because the pardoning of a life-termer was actually more probable, after a span of from seven to ten years, than the pardoning of an inmate who had been sentenced to 10 or more years of imprisonment. The pardoning power of itself was not only not an evil, but was a necessity in an age without the use of the principle of the sys- tematic commutation of sentences in accordance with law. But the abuse of the pardoning power was a serious and often demoralizing evil. What about the results of prison treatment, in the period we are considering ? The test of a prison 's success has generally been held to be the proportion of inmates, who, through the nature of the prison treatment, are deterred from further crime. Cure has been held to be demonstrated, negatively, by the subsquent non-appear- ance of the said inmates in any correctional institution. Affirm- atively, by the proved activity of the discharged prisoners in leading an apparently honest life, and in continuing to be self-supporting. The return to prison for a subsequent crime is called * ' recidivism. * ' The tests of prison treatment, in terms of subsequent appearances in correctional institutions, were extremely faulty. Statistics of recidivism were painfully incomplete, largely because they could not from the nature of the case be obtained. There existed not only no system of recording physical measurements or marks of identifi- cation of inmates, but there was also naturally no central bureau of records, and no adequate records. The era was one of building up the elements of prison discipline and routine — not one of analyzing prison results by fine tests and research. Only those statistics based on the recorded experiences of a single prison could be prepared regarding recidivism in that one prison, and even then the evidence was largely ** hearsay" or subjective. Convicts might have served previously in several other institutions, and might have lived a long life of crime and still appear in prison statistics as first offenders in the prison under consideration. 336 History of American Prisons The Massachusetts State Prison showed by intermittent statistics between 1820 and 1843 a total of 3,037 receptions and 147 recom- mitments ; the Eastern Penitentiary 2,818 receptions and 139 recom- mitments. Such figures have only a misleading effect. Indeed, statistics compiled at various times throughout the nineteenth century show not only the widest variations, but also elements that make them hard of comparison with each other. It would be most difficult even to-day to prove by any statistics of recidivism the success or failure of prisons in the United States in the absence still of a complete central bureau of identification. We need not then give lengthy consideration to the seriously inadequate statistics of the early periods. Indeed, the term ''reformation" connoted several different things, but usually the word meant a thorough spiritual conversion of the prisoner, as well as the intention to lead henceforth a law-abiding life. Elam Lynds, the warden of Auburn and Sing Sing prisons, did not believe in the permanent reformation of any adult convict. Reports from many prisons, between 1830 and 1840, testified to the presence of only occasional ''reformations." No studies of scientific thoroughness were made, to determine results. An occasional survey of the lives of discharged prisoners was made, as at Auburn prison between 1825 and 1830, when, by letters to postmasters, district attorneys and others. Warden Gershom Powers learned that of 160 prisoners released, 112 were decidedly steady and industrious, while 12 others were ' ' somewhat reformed. ' ' Dorothea Dix, in 1845, knew of no person who had uniformly kept in view so large a number of discharged convicts as 50 or lOQ after their "enlargement" from any prison, for two, three, or five years. In general, reformations were assumed to have taken place, if the prisoners failed to return to prison. We must, therefore, frankly abandon any effort to determine from the statistics of "reformations" the relative values of either the silent or the sepa- rate systems, or of individual prisons that employed these systems. Moreover, the judgment of the times as to the relative success of the competing systems was based mainly, not on possible reforma- tions, but on such tangible, or apparently tangible facts, as the routine administration, the relative proportion of sickness and death, cases of insanity, provision for mental and moral instruction, humane treatment, discipline, industrial productivity and the like. We have thus far described those factors of prison discipline which were employed to assure security and intimidation, obedience, and industrial productivity. In this review, the prisoner has appeared as a slave of the government, a thing to be used, a person without civic rights, a convict to be kept from escaping and con- tinuing thereby his crimes, a person to be punished for any infraction of a rigorous system of discipline. He was provided in general with the minimum of creature necessities, threatened by harsh and often ingeniously cruel punishments, harassed by numer- ous and frequent positive discomforts, driven to work from sun-up to sun-down every day in the year save perhaps the Fourth of History of American Prisons 337 July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, locked into desperately unsani- tary and disease-breeding cells for thirteen or fourteen hours a day, and for practically all the time from Saturday night to Monday morning, cut off from the world of friends and people and events, merged into a body of outlaws, and ostracized and hated by society in general. To what extent did the prisons, as representatives of society '?* reaction against convicts, make provision for the inmates of prisons as reclaimable human beings ? What measures of health, of educa- tion, of religious consolation, of other civilizing forces were utilized ? Let us consider first the provisions of health. Society was in no way vitally interested in the extent to which the prisons of the period made provision for the prisoner as a reclaimable human being. The illness or the health of the convict meant little to the world outside. But the administrator of a prison was interested in maintaining a favorable health rate, because the prison labor contractors paid the State only for the services of the able-bodied. Auburn, Sing Sing, Massachusetts, and other prisons drove inmates to work who claimed to be ill, or who were suspected of feigning insanity. Many of the most terrible records of cruelty in this period center about such practices. Deaths within a few hours of the final abandonment of work testify to the horrors of the practice. Little systematic medical service was rendered to the prisoners, and still more infrequent were any careful studies of the medical problems of prisons. Doctor Franklin Bache at the Eastern Peni- tentiary, Doctor Woodward at Wethersfield, and Doctor Coleman at Trenton, were exceptions as prison physicians, emphasizing by their very concern about morbidity, mortality and their causes the very low general average of medical services in prisons. The ** doctor '* came for a few hours, and irregularly ; he was on call at other times, but often failed to arrive in time to save life. Prison hospitals were mainly hit-or-miss places of segregation of the severely sick, who were attended by inmate *' nurses" in the intervals between the visits of the physician. Of these ** nurses," gruesome stories of callousness and brutality were frequent. Drugs were adminis- tered by poorly qualified ''apothecaries" or by inmates. The physician's salary was small, he was held to no professional stand- ards, and his scientific interest was generally slight or wholly wanting. It may safely be said that to most of the physicians, the task of medical and surgical service to the convicts was not stimulating. The hospital was regarded by the prisoners as a goal to be attained if possible, but only because their ordinary existence was so intolerable. At the hospital a slightly different diet could be had. Here they could talk — in the prisons of the Auburn type — with each other. Here, lewdness and immorality flourished. To counteract the tendency to attain the hospital, severe penalties were affixed to feigned illness, and admission to the hospital was granted only on proof that was often so adequate as to bring about also the 338 History of American Prisons speedy death of the patient, because of the delays in proper medical or surgical treatment. Resident physicians were rare, and in the' relatively enlightened Eastern Penitentiary there was no resident physician until 1842. Hospital records in most prisons were so inadequate as to give a wholly imperfect picture of prison morbidity and mortality. Several facts concerning the prevalence of diseases stood out prominently. Consumption, rheumatism, coughs and colds were the prevailing diseases in the winter months, and *' intermittent fevers," typhoid and dysentery were frequent in the summers. Over one-half of the deaths in Auburn prison from 1817 to 1844 were from ''some form of diseased lungs.'' Many forms of ''scrofula" developed, and were attributed by the Prison Associa- tion of New York in 1845 to the deplorable lack of ventilation in .. the cells. But despite the grossly insanitary physical equipment of the prisons, and the strikingly inadequate medical service, both Dorothea Dix and an investigating committee of the Prison Associa- tion of New York in 1845 and 1846 held that, on the whole, imprisonment tended to increase rather than decrease the chances of life. Regular hours, regular diet, and the entire absence of chances for dissipation, coupled with necessarily long hours of sleep, seemed to more than offset the evils of bad ventilation, cramped and clammy cells, the extremes of temperature in the several parts of the prison, and the wretched physical condition of many of the inmates on admission. Dorothea Dix, after several years of prison visiting, stated that the prisoners seemed to be in quite as good condition as those men who worked in similar trades i at free labor. The percentage of deaths, in most prisons, was considered low. For many years the Auburn-type prisons registered approximately from one to two per cent, of deaths annually. Virginia's prison ran an abnormally high death rate, due to local conditions. The Eastern and Western Penitentiaries registered a somewhat higher death rate than did Auburn, Wethersfield or Massachusetts. How- ever, a most important factor was omitted from all of these calcula- tions. The number of inmates pardoned out for serious ill health, and not recorded at the time of the compilation of mortality or morbidity tables, often made the published statistics wholly unreli- able as an accurate picture of health facts. Furthermore, a much higher percentage of negroes in the population of the Eastern Penitentiary and of the State prisons of Maryland and Virginia contributed to the higher mortality rates, and threw out the possibility of comparing similar statistics. A Bitter controversy arose as to the morbidity, mortality and /|insanity percentages in prisons of the two rival types. The Auburn- type prisons scored somewhat lower mortality rates, but housed fewer negroes. Cases of illness were less prominent in Auburn-type prisons, but at the Eastern Penitentiary the exceptionally well- trained physician, Doctor Bache, displayed scientific interest in his History of American Prisons 339 work, and gave detailed reports of his studies in the annual reports of the prison. At the close of the period that we are now consider- ing, both the Boston and the New York prison societies were doubtful as to the relative healthfulness of the two systems, when conducted under the best conditions, while the Philadelphia prison reformers were convinced of the good morbidity and mortality records of their local prison. The leading prison administrators and students of Europe, who had, in the main, made long-distance studies of the two systems, were practically a unit in urging the adoption of the separate system of confinement. The warfare, which for twenty years had been vehemently waged by the Boston Society against the Pennsylvania system, with health facts as per- haps the chief supporting argument, apart from the financial facts or hypotheses, had not eventuated in much more than a drawn battle. There was similar unclearness of statistics regarding the presence and seriousness of insanity in the prisons. Not until toward the end of the period we have discussed in this study was any earnest effort made to remove from the State prisons the insane, though . agitation for their removal had been a leading feature of the pro- gram of the Boston Society for many years. Only in Massachusetts was there by 1845 a good system of the transfer of the insane from the prison to the State asylum. Insanity was little understood as yet even by the medical profession ; its treatment through kindness, the striking off of chains, and the abolition of physical punishment, was new and not well established. Laymen knew the ailment only as it was manifested in ** crazy people." Many private families still kept their insane in cages on their own property, or in their own homes. Wardens reported to the Boston Society, in response to a circular letter, that only ' * here and there ' ' was there a lunatic in their prison population. Some prisons stated that they had not had a single lunatic in their entire history ! Pennsylvania treated its insane in the separate cells of the prison, to which cells they were admitted on entrance. Unquestionably, there was much unrecognized insanity in the prisons. ''Feigned insanity" was a frequent diagnosis for the actual disease. Brutal corporal punishments were applied as cura- tives for supposed malingering in contract-labor prisons. Tragedies innumerable and unrecorded occurred without question among the imprisoned insane. Much of the incentive to brutal punishments arose undoubtedly from the inability of the mentally sick to obey the prison rules, and perform satisfactorily the stints of work set for them, stints that were frequently severe, even for the able-minded. The Eastern Penitentiary was made a target by the Boston Society as an insanity-breeder, on the assumption that ''solitary confinement, ' ' if long continued, produced madness. Two fallacies, however, were embraced in this conclusion. First, the Pennsylvania system provided for separate, but not solitary, confinement of its inmates. Visits of some frequency occurred in the cells of the Eastern Penitentiary, not only from the prison officers, but also 340 History of American Prisons from the representatives of the prison reform society of Philadel- phia. Actual solitary confinement had occurred in Auburn prison in 1822 and 1823, and had produced madness. But in the Eastern Penitentiary, the second fallacy of the Boston argument was made clear by the fact that only in the annual reports of the Eastern Penitentiary had a careful and scientifically-minded physician recorded and discussed with apparent sincerity and faithfulness the manifestations of mental disorder within the institution. This very honesty and frankness furnished good ammunition to hostile critics, who failed to emphasize the lack of similar thorough analysis in institutions of the Auburn type. Nevertheless, the unbiased student of the period must derive a cumulative impression from the assembled facts that the permanent segregation of inmates in separate cells, as in Philadelphia, rendered the prisoners more prone to mental disorders than did the alternate association and separation of inmates in Auburn-type prisons. But insanity was a very troublesome matter to all intelligent wardens, by the fifth decade of the nineteenth century. In Sing Sing, in November, 1844, 31 of the 688 convicts were recognized as insane. In 1843 and 1844, 27 convicts had been admitted to the Eastern Penitentiary while insane. There was no other place to which criminal insane persons could readily be sent. Private and public hospitals for the insane were few, congested, and did not take criminals. The prison was the only *'safe" place to which to send the criminal insane. Prison life — made up so predominantly of silence and separation from one 's fellows — induced masturbation to an appalling degree, broke down health, developed prison psychoses, and undermined the will. In many inmates of the prisons, the environment inevitably produced mental diseases. Moreover, the presence in the prisons of a mentally deficient group, not insane, but ''lacking," the feeble- minded and often incorrigible, was coming to be recognized. And there was as yet no proper place for their treatment. f The above-outlined efforts to reduce illness, insanity and death were determined probably not so much by any special solicitude for the prisoner as a man as by the prison 's need of able-bodied inmates. Prisons had grown to be organized institutions because the abolition of the death penalties for many crimes had made prisons indispen- sable. They were to be places of punishment, dread and hard labor. Only gradually, and often reluctantly, did the prisons give recogni- tion to the demands of the prison reformers that the Gospel and the chaplain should have a definite place in prison discipline. Chaplains, if on the staff of the prisons at all, were low-salaried intermittent, and often quite inefficient. They were not held to be among the indispensable officials, like the warden, the principal keeper or even the physician. Many prisons had no regular church service on Sunday ; few prisons held daily chapel services. Often, in the absence of the chaplain, some clergyman from the vicinity officiated. Sunday schools were established in some of the more highly organized prisons, like Auburn, Wethersfield, and Massa- History of American Prisons 341 chusetts, in which religious instruction was given mainly by volunteer citizens. Dorothea Dix summed up the situation in 1845 by saying that except in the Eastern Penitentiary, general and moral teaching in the State prisons was insufficiently provided for. The chaplain was the missionary — and often the only one — of the prison. He conducted the service on Sunday. When there was a Sunday School, he directed it. In a number of States the law required him to make daily visits to the prison, and to converse with the convicts in their cells. His eyes were to be fixed on spiritual things ; he was not to be actively concerned about discipline or abuses. His presence was undoubtedly often tolerated by the warden, rather than desired. fThe warden himself seldom played i the part of an active reformer of his inmates. Administrative matters mainly engaged the attention of the warden. Only wardens with exceptional personality were much concerned with the reforma- tive treatment of their prisoners. At the outset of the Auburn system, Elam Lynds set a standard of relentless severity of treat- ment. His successor, Gershom Powers, had his first heart-to-heart talk with the inmate after he was discharged. On the other hand, some wardens, like Amos Pilsbury, combined determined disciplin- ary methods with interest in their charges. But even at Wethersfield, the chaplain in the early forties dared to urge the warden to give more consideration to the souls of the inmates, and less to the making of money for the State out of their bodies^ The chaplain was also practically the only teacher within the prison, in an era (1825-1845) when prisoners were rarely taught even the three R's. The end of our period under review marks in the main the beginning of a systematic effort to secure schooling for prisoners. The Connecticut chaplain was suggesting two hours a week for regular moral and general educational teaching. The Bible was the customary text book for teaching spelling and reading. No class-room instruction was held. The evening period was the only available time for instruction, and the picture is vivid, to the student of prison history, of the chaplain standing in the semi-dark corridor, before the cell door, with a dingy lantern hanging to the grated bars, and teaching to the wretched convict in the darkness beyond the grated door the rudiments of reading or of numbers. In any prisons that permitted occasional communication of con- victs by letter with their friends, the chaplain wrote the letters. Prisoners were furnished only with slates and slate pencils. The chaplain also organized the prison library, if there was one. A con- siderable proportion of convicts in northern prisons could read and write — 536 out of 861 in Sing Sing in November, 1844 ; 210 others could read but not write. A Bible was generally supposed to be in everv cell. Only the better oro^anized prisons maintained libraries. Connecticut had a small library ; each prisoner was furnished also with a weekly temperance paper, and a religious paper. Massa- chusetts had a prison library of several hundred volumes, initiated by a donation of $50, ' ' sent by the mother of a life prisoner to her son, to furnish him with proper reading." The prisoners in the 344 History of American Prisons through the years. Wardens and members of boards of inspectors came and went — learning so far as they could their new duties, but sensing that their tenure of office was liable to be short. Adher- ^ \ ence to the customs and principles that had appeared to their predecessors safe and sound was but natural. There were few men whose personalities thrust themselves above the mediocrity of the average warden. In this period there projected the figures of Elam Lynds, Gershom Powers, Samuel L. Wood of the Eastern Penitentiary, Moses and Amos Pilsbury of Wethersfield, and Sam- uel Parsons of Virginia, followed in that State by the conscientious Morgan. The names are few and among them only those of the Pilsburys have endured. At the very close of the period we find Zebulon R. Brockway, who was to be in his long life the devoted student of the methods of Amos Pilsbury, as guard in the Connec- ticut State prison, then associated with Pilsbury at Albany in the county penitentiary, then manager of the Detroit House of Correction, then founder, with Enoch C. Wines and others of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira, then for many years its superintendent, to become the greatest practical administrator in this country of the reformatory type of institution — all the time growing as a philosopher in penological and criminological matters, to become finally the ''grand old man" of the wardens and the superintendents of the United States, and finally, to die peacefully at the age of 93 at his home in Elmira, New York, in October, 1920. Brockway, the sole figure that linked the distant past, which we have studied in this volume, with the present, in which still far too many of the conditions herein described have perpetuated them- selves, and in which still many of the theories and statements we have found and studied are maintained and repeated, as if original and having the value of new discoveries ! The writer of this volume closes his study here in the year 1845, the first of the activity of the Prison Association of New York, the organization of which he is, after three-quarters of a century of the Association's activity, the general secretary. Between the end of our study, and the present day, lie over seventy-five years, a period rich in daring experiment, as well as in the evolution of already developing methods of humane and wise treatment of prisoners. He (or she) who may write the second, and final volume, of the history of prison methods in our country will live, during an extended period of study and exploration, in a field of wonderful interest, the field of the growth of the reformatory, the indeter- minate sentence, parole, the specialized institutions, the juvenile courts, the practice of probation, the prison reform and prisoners' relief organizations, the honor system, the farm colonies, the indi- vidualization of punishment and of discipline, the rise of confer- ences and congresses on prison methods, and finally, the growth of the belief that in the community itself, long before the so-called criminal finds his ultimate way into correctional and penal institu- tions, lie many of the causes, and consequently lie many of the responsibilities for the presence of crime. History of American Prisons 345 Yet, in this second great period, the period upon whose threshold we pause, we doubt if there will be found greater interest, and more stimulating exploration, than in the first and far less clarified period which we have studied. In the progress of our study, the forms of men long gone have risen repeatedly before us — Lownes, Bradford, Livingston, Eddy, Lynds, Powers, Brittin, Hopkins, Wood, Parsons, the Pilsburys, Combe, Doctor Bache, and many others. Who of all the readers — if there be such of this history — have known many — or any — of them before. We have gained them as our acquaintances through our study, and we are the richer therefor. They have been men of varying capacities and tempera- ments and methods. Some of them have been cruel disciplinarians, some have been persistently humane, some have been theorists, and have touched only slightly in practical ways the prison field. Yet they all have contributed to the great prison systems of the present day — and it is with a feeling of gladness that the writer believes that, to an extent, their contributions to what we possess to-day have been for the first time somewhat fully defined for modern students, and their services recorded and made available to the present day. And it seems fitting that we turn at last to that woman who in so many ways went about doing good in the prison field, in those crucial days, Dorothea Lynde Dix, the woman who has given us the most cogent and graphic outline of the prisons in the period at which we close our study — eminent fighter for the betterment of the conditions of the insane, the pauper and the prisoner. We quote, in conclusion, from her some words that at the end of this study are wholly pertinent, and which for many of us have the same application that they had for Dorothea Dix, seventy-five years ago: "Sincerely do I regret that I have so little leisure to give to the illustra- tion of these important subjects, upon which volumes might be written, show- ing the origin, progress and prospects of a reform so eminently affecting social order, and the civil institutions of the Kepublic. Years of uninter- mitted labor and vigilance are necessary for producing practically beneficial results, through the influences of these disciplinary institutions. * * Society, during the last hundred years, has been alternately perplexed and encouraged, respecting the two great questions — how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of, in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand, and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship? Though progress has been made, through the efforts of energetic and enlightened persons, directed to the attainment of these ends, all know that society is very far from realizing their accomplishment. We accord earnest and grateful praise to those who have procured the benefits at present possessed; and with careful zeal, we would endeavor to advance a work, which succeeding generations must toil to perfect and complete." History of American Prisons 347 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Account of the Massachusetts State Prison, by Board of Visitors. Charlestown, Mass., 1806. (Also Rules and Regulations of the Massachusetts State Prisons, in Appendix to Account of the Mass. State Prison, 1811.) S. Etheridge, Boston. Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, An. John Howard, Warring- ton, England, 1789. Biographical Sketch of Amos Pilsbury. William Hunt (Albany, 1849, Joel Munsell, printer). Boston Prison Discipline Society. Annual Reports, 1826, 1845. 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New York: Report of Agent of the Mount Pleasant State Prison, No. 92, in Senate, New York, 1834; also 1843. New York: Report of Select Committee of New York Senate, 1831. New York: Report of Society for the Prevention of Pauperism, 1821, 1822. Pennsylvania : Report of Joint Committee of Legislature of Pennsylvania, relative to Eastern Penitentiary, Harrisburg, 1835. Pennsylvania: Fourth Report, Inspectors of Eastern Penitentiary, 1832. Pennsylvania: Annual Reports of Board of Inspectors of Eastern Peni- tentiary, for Years 1830, 1831, 1834, 1837, 1838, 1842, 1844. Pennsylvania: Report of Committee appointed in 1816 to consider subject of the State Prison of Massachusetts and to inquire into the mode of governing the Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, 1817. Pennsylvania: Report of Charles Shaler, Edward King, and T. I. Wharton, a commission created by the Legislature in 1826 to study prison discipline. Sketch of the Principal Transactions of the Philadelphia Society for Allevi- ating the Misery of Public Prisons. From Origin to Present Time. (Philadelphia, 1859, Merrihew and Thompson.) V/Bociety in America, Vol. II. Harriet Martineau (London, 1837). State Prisons, Hospitals, etc.. Embracing their History, Finances, etc. Vol. II. C. M. Brush, State Printer (Harrisburg, Pa., 1897). State of Prisons in England and Wales, The. John Howard (Warrington, England, 1780). ^ Torture and Homicide in an American State Prison. Harper's Weeklv, Dec. 18, 1858. '' 350 History of American Prisons Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828. Basil Hall (Phila- delphia, 1829). Travels Through the Northern Parts of the United States in the Years 1807 and 1808. E. A. Kendall. Vol. I. View of New York State Prison in the City of New York, by a member of the ^institution. New York, 1815. y{sit to the Philadelphia Prison. Eobert J. Turnbull (James Phillips & Co., ^ London, 1797). William Penn as a Lawgiver. H. L. Carson (Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 30). .^^ Within Prison Walls. T. M. Osborne (D . Appleton & Co., New York, 1914). Works of J^dward Livingston, Vol. I. ' " " ^^ Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. I and IV. Edited by P. L. Ford (New York, 1892-1899). \ 5?J^ CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT cJ71j RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 r ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 • 1 -year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF • Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. DUE AS STAIVIPED BELOW AUG 14 1989 JAM 18 2000 12,000(11/95) DerKeiey (Q1173Sl0)476^A-32 ifomia -Ub ^173Sl0)476-A-33 ' Berkeley iD2lA-60m-6,'69 University of Califoma^ LD21A (J9096sl0)476-A-32 University • Berketey inn» ii