ARTICLE IV.-PRISON DISCIPLINE AS A SCIENCE.

EVERY reader of the Vicar of Wakefield (and who has not read that charming book?) remembers the story which good Dr. Primrose tells of his experience in prison, and his efforts to reform the unfortunate companions of his confinement. Goldsmith, with the happy inspiration of genius, seems to have touched the root of a matter which has wonderfully developed since his day. His own sympathy with distress of every kind revealed to him what appeared to be hidden from his contemporaries—the very bad condition of the imprisoned classes of society, and the cruel character of the criminal code of the time. We read his words as though they had been written for a later century. Indeed, is it not always the privilege of a true genius to look both before and after, and to speak as though with the gift of prophecy? "It were highly to be wished," says the worthy Doctor, "that legislative power would direct the law rather to reformation than severity; that it would seem convinced that the work of eradicating crimes is not by making punishments familiar, but formidable. Then, instead of our present prisons, which find or make men guilty, which enclose wretches for the commission of one crime, and return them, if returned alive, fitted for the perpetration of thousands, we should see, as in other parts of Europe, places of penitence and solitude, where the accused might be attended by such as could them give repentance if guilty, or new motives to virtue if innocent. * It were to be wished, then, that power, instead of contriving new laws to punish vice, instead of drawing hard the cords of society till a convulsion came to burst them, instead of cutting away wretches as useless before we have tried their utility, instead of converting correction into vengeance, it were to be wished that we tried the restrictive arts of government, and made the law the protector, but not the tyrant, of the people. We should then find that creatures, whose souls are held as dross, only wanted the hand of a refiner; we should then find that creatures now stuck up for long tortures, lest

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luxury should feel a momentary pang, might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the State in times of danger; that, as their faces are like ours, their hearts are so too; that few minds are so base as that perseverance cannot amend; that a man may see his last crime without dying for it; and that very little blood will serve to cement our security."*

Goldsmith's words were directed against the severity of the laws of England, which, at the time, decreed the penalty of death for no less than one hundred and ninety-six offences. But he, also, in the pregnant sentences which I have quoted, enforced the propositions, that the criminal was still a man with manhood's rights, and that the discipline of prison life should be employed for the reformation as well as the punishment of the offender-propositions which lie at the basis of this very interesting branch of social science. Yet Goldsmith wrote before Howard had begun his philanthropic labors for the prisoner, to which he at last fell a martyr, and before Elizabeth Fry had been born.† He anticipated, by at least half a century, the leading opinions of the best laborers in this long neglected field. His protest against the blood-thirsty character of English law was well deserved. Let the careful student read Walpole's Letters, or Boswell's Life of Johnson, or any of the books that treat of the familiar social life of England at the period in question, and he will find sufficient evidence of the need of calling public attention to the matter. Men and women were executed every week-" seventeen this morning," says Walpole in one of his letters. The case of one young woman, but nineteen years of age, with an infant at the breast, hung at Tyburn for taking a piece of coarse linen from the counter of a draper's shop, but not carrying it from the premises, was deemed of sufficient importance to be mentioned in Parliament, but it led to no immediate practical results. The country had grown to be "a shambles." and travelers were obliged, even at noon, and within sound of Bow Bells, to go

Vicar of Wakefield, chap. xxvii.

The Vicar of Wakefield was published in 1766. Howard's attention was most strongly turned to the subject of prison improvement by an official inspection of Bedford jail in 1773. He died at Kherson in the autumn of 1789. Elizabeth Fry, the celebrated Quakeress, who labored in behalf of female prisoners for many years, was born May 21, 1780.

armed, "as if one was going to battle." For, with all the severity of the law and its frequent illustration, life and property were wholly insecure.

A great change has taken place in public opinion within the last hundred years. In England and the United States-particularly in the latter there are now but few capital crimes. In Rhode Island and Iowa there is no capital punishment. Better ideas of the treatment of prisoners have prevailed, and more humane methods have been adopted. England has a prison system unsurpassed for efficiency. Laws have become milder and punishments less severe. Much of this ameliora

tion is, of course, due to the gradual improvement of society in all its parts. Property and life are now secure. The traveler can make his journeys with comparative, if not complete, safety in every portion of the civilized globe. The result comes from the growth of the sentiment of obedience to law as the recognized power of society and the State-beneath that, from the development of the principle of justice in human thought, conscience, and conduct, with which all laws must be in accord to secure a thorough obedience. The laws are milder as society becomes more just. There is still, however, abundant room for philanthropic labor in the direction of prison reform. Great progress has been made, but much yet remains to be done, and there is need of the wisest and most judicious methods of study and action. Prison discipline must be studied as a science, with a sagacious, intelligent, and dispassionate examination of the facts and laws upon which it is based. It does not belong altogether within the realm of sentiment. It is rather within the domain of calm inquiry and the most careful experiment. It is easy to indulge in hasty generalizations and extravagant theories. But anyone, who has had any personal intercourse with our convict and criminal population, knows how difficult, and sometimes disheartening, is the task of producing practical results for the lasting benefit of those who have fallen into crime. Philanthropy is very liable to a mistaken and misplaced generosity. As we climb a rugged path, it must not be surprising if we sometimes miss our footing, and stumble on the way. But perseverance, courage, and faith will yet win the ascent.

It is easy to understand how persons of a warm and generous temperament should come to cherish a sympathetic interest in the criminal, without due regard to the real character of the crime he has committed. The spectacle of personal, individual misfortune is always sure to arouse sympathy in hearts that are at all susceptible to pity. There is also a certain element of romance in successful crime, of which the essayist, the novelist, and the poet have been quick to avail themselves. Music and the drama have put the villain on the stage with a surprisingly successful effect. In actual life, crime, especially where attended with difficulty and danger, possesses a certain fascination, and the story of it is always sure of attention, as the hero of it is always sure of becoming an object of curiosity, and is sufficiently notorious to attract for the time the public eye. The mystery, with which it is partially shrouded, the passions that have been excited, the ingenuity of purpose with which it is sometimes accompanied, the complications, schemes, devices, the often baffled but at last successful plan-in fine, the many dramatic and even startling and unexpected situations and incidents that attend the development of the plot, have often an absorbing interest. Add to this, that the human mind is, in some conditions, strongly attracted to the dark side of life, the strange, the horrible, the grotesque, and we have a combination of influences sufficient to produce a very powerful sympathetic action in human nature toward crime and the criminal.

There is another element in this kind of sympathy. In view of the misfortune which is present, one is liable to forget the injury that has been done to the absent, and the consequent distress and disturbance of the beneficent forces of society. It is not pleasant to contemplate a human being deprived of liberty, subject to complete restraint, reduced to a thorough submission to an indisputable authority, shut out from intercourse with the world, and, as one may say, buried alive. We pity the wretch, because he is thus wretched. But in this feeling of pity, we must not altogether lose sight of those whom his crime has made, possibly, more wretched than himself. He was, in some respects, a voluntary agent. He knew, in part at least, the probable consequences of his crime. He understood that he

was acting in violation of law. He placed himself in distinct, and to some extent deliberate, antagonism to society, selfishly serving his own interests and passions, and disregarding the rights of others. Pity for such a man and for all human distress is, and ever should be, a welcome guest, that we would always gladly entertain. But it should be pity, not called forth and exercised because he is thus held in restraint, but rather because he has so wronged and perverted his nature as to make his restraint necessary to the safety of his fellow-men. It is also a short step from pity to encouragement. It will be perceived that we are here treading on very delicate and even dangerous ground. It is especially needful that we be wellpoised by reason, while our sensibilities beckon us along the way. A warm heart, a cool brain, and steady nerves are required to walk with safety the difficult path.

Prison discipline, as a science, must be based upon two fundamental principles: 1. The recognition of the essential manhood of the criminal; 2. The possibility of reclaiming and reforming him. If he goes down to the depths, he is also capable of rising to the heights of character. He is to be punished for his violation of the law. Society is to be protected. But in order to prevent a future violation of the law and to ensure a future protection, society must undertake the reformation of the criminal. So prisons are built, and the dangerous classes are put in confinement. But their term of confinement should be so employed that, when they are once more set free, they shall not be "fitted for the perpetration of a thousand" crimes, but fitted rather to become useful to society and the State. It seems almost commonplace now to speak thus. Yet to make this commonplace has required many years of labor and sacrifice. According to the old method, the criminal was simply to be punished-paying to the full the penalty of his offence, and suffering without mercy the extreme ferocity of the law.* Yet this summary way of dealing with the matter was not effectual in diminishing crime. Neither the slow torture of imprisonment, nor the quick agony of execution, heightened by the terrified imagination, could suffice to deter the evil-dis

* It was not till 1790 that the law of England, imposing the penalty of burning upon women convicted of coining, was repealed.