PENITENTIARIES, strictly-so called, are institutions for the reception of penitent women, in which purely voluntary. The name has also been applied to prisons under the separate system, having been adopted by the Quakers of Pennsyl vania in 17S6, when they caused the legislature of that state to abolish the punishments of death, mutilation, and the whip, and to substitute solitary confinement as a reforma tory process. (See CONVICT, PItISON DiscipLimE.) The penitentiaries of the first men tioned kind are often known as Magdalen asylums or female refuges. Most of the institutions of this kind in the United Kingdom are associated under the auspices of the reformatory and refuge union, an association which embraces also reformatories, industrial schools, and other like institutes. In 1877 the union had on its list 65 peni tentiaries or homes for fallen women in England (15 in London), and 12 in Ireland and Scotland. In the Magdalen asylums, the inmates remain in the strictest seclusion for periods varying from a few months to two years, the average time being about a year; they then return to their friends, or to situations provided for them. It is au invariable
rule not to dismiss any save the entirely incorrigible, without seeing that they are pro vided with the means of honest subsistence. During their seclusion, they are employed in needlework, washing, and housework. Most of the provincial and metropolitan establishments have been created in the last 20 years. The oldest institution is the London Magdalen hospital (with room with 140 penitents), opened in 1758; the next that of Dublin (for 20 persons), in 1766; the Edinburgh Magdalen asyllim (with room for 715 persons), in 1797. All the rest (including a large one at Glasgow, with accommo dation for 146 penitents) have been founded in the present century. The results of these penitentiaries, as far as they can be ascertained, are excellent. During the last 100 years, the London Magdalen committee state that they have found from their extensive experience that 70 per cent are permanently reformed. All the institutions can show a very large percentage restored to their friends and to society.