PRISONS AND PRISON DISCIPLINE (ante). To regard criminals with a kindly view to their reformation, or at least to their moral improvement and physical com fort, is a recent development of our civilization; and the progress already made is not to be in boasted of. What has been done is aimed to attract criminals into the ways of industry, instead of so conducting punishments as to breed new vices: The first step in prison reform was in Italy, 1704, by pope Clement XI. in the estab lishment of the prison of St. Michael for boys and youths, on the plan since known by many names, and lastly as the "Auburn system"—the system of sephrate cells at night, and silent associated labor by day. "Howard visited it and praised it a hundred years ago," and found within it on a marble slab this inscription in Latin, "It is of little use to restrain criminals by punishment, unless you reform them by education." In England in 1728 gen. Oglethorpe, the founder of the state of Georgia, then in parliament, pro cured the appointment of a committee of the house of commons " to inquire into the state of jails in this kingdom." The inquiry awakened general indignation at the shameful and cruel condition of the prisons, expressed through pamphlets, newspapers, and by the cartoons of Hogarth. But there was no efficient government action behind it, and small good came of it. In 1735 reformer, William Hay, pointed out the horrible abuses of the prison system, and made a clear and concise statement of the remedies. At the same time Wesley and Whitefield preached and prayed for reform; but the government took side with the prison tyrannies, and forbade their preaching "sedition." Blackstone's commentaries in 1765 shook public confidence in the bar barous system, sustained by a semi-barbarous government, but its influence slowly. Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, in France, and Beccaria on Crimes and their Punishments, in Italy, widened the circle of intelligent warfare on barbarism intrenched iu the feudal governments and laws of all these countries. John Howard, in 1758, began his wonderful career of 31 years in visiting the jails of England, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Spain, and Portugal, and their pest-houses as well, and even sought where pestilence raged in Malta, Smyrna, and Constantinople, to study the means of relief from it. No man has united more remarkably the zeal
of a martyr with the calm intelligence of a statesman in the service of philanthropy. In 1772 a clergyman of the name of Denne proposed the thing which pope Clement XI. had done in 1701, in a pamphlet which attracted attention. About the time Howard being made high sheriff for Bedfordshire, practical improvements in England began, and have since worked very slowly, to a better state of things. In 1765 the empress Maria Theresa, of Austria, gave her aid to the work. Viscount Vitain XIV., in 1775, founded the convict prison at Ghent, having separate cells and a more intelli gent and humane system of discipline than ever before attempted on a large scale., "Here then," remarks the rev. Dr. E. C. Wines, "in the prison of Ghent, we find already applied the great principles which the world is even to-day but slowly and painfully seeking to introduce into prison management. Whf,, are they?" When Howard died the general movement lost its force, and reforms fairly begun gave way to the reflux tide of former abuses. :Jeremy Bentham, in 1791, renewed pun& attention to the subject. In 1813 Elizabeth Fry, a lady of aristocratic connections in London, a member of the society of Friends, a devout woman singularly endowed with benevolence, stren,gth of will, and feminine graces, COMIllelleed her visits to Newgate prison. She found the condition of women in prison simply appalling, and awakened a new interest in prison reforms. Wilberforce and Buxton aided her in parliament. In 1823 sir Robert Peel put aside the medley of old English laws pertaining to prison dis cipline and framed a new code called the consolidated jail act, which went into imme diate effect. It was a crude law, providing for no classification among convicts, but it made some steps forward, and swept away still more vicious old laws, under which prisons were simply hot-beds for propagation of crime.