Part 3 (1/2)

We cooverned too lect the means by which the proper relations of society could be preserved, and the world be governed less

In orks are the so-called Christian govern, by artifice, diplomacy, and war, to extend national boundaries, preserve national honor, or enforce nice distinctions against the timid and weak? Yet it is plain that a nation is powerful according to the character of the living eleanized norant, indolent, or wasteful in its labor, its claireatness are destitute of solid foundation, and it ained power by the elevation of the individual as the element of the nation

That nation, then, is wise, and destined to becoreat, which cultivates the best eleh to read the parable of the lost sheep, and of the ninety and nine that went not astray, and then say, ”Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish,”

while the ards the life of this world lect is followed by error and criovernments debate questions of war and peace, of trade and revenue, of annexations with ceremony, and appropriations of territory without ceree of all for the neglect, indifference, and oppression, which beget and foster the delinquencies of childhood, and harden the criminals of adult life?

And who shall answer for those distinctions of caste and systerade and fas, that the divineof the five thousand must be multiplied many times over before the truths of nature or revelation can be received into teachable minds or susceptible hearts? And who shall answer for the hereditary poverty, ignorance and crilish life, and are distinctly visible upon the face of American civilization? These questions may point with sufficient distinctness to the sources of the evils enuovernments can furnish an adequate and co is no excuse for neglecting those things which are plainly within their power

Taking upon the that they have wrongs to avenge, and seeking reforh kindness, criminals and the causes of crime will diminish, if they do not disappear This is the responsibility of the nations, and the claim now made upon them

Individual civilization and refinement have always been in advance of national; and national character is thethe humblest, of which the nation is composed

Each foot of the ocean's surface has, in its fluidity or density or position, so of the quality or power of every drop of water which rests or moves in the depths of the sea What is called national character is the face of the great society beneath; and, as that society in its elements is elevated or debased, so will the national character rise or fall in the estie of ianized expression of the will of society, should represent the best eleht, therefore, to courate labor, justice, and truth, as the elerowth, and power It must accept as its principles of action the best rules of conduct in individuals The s by personal attacks or vindictive retaliation, must sacrifice in soood So the nation which avenges real or fancied wrongs crushes out the eleher life, which, properly cultivated,mortal to virtue and peace The proper object of punisheance, but the public safety and the reformation of the criminal Indeed, we may say that the sole object of punishment is the reformation of the criminal; for there can be no safety to the public while the criminal is unreformed The punishment of the prison must, from its nature, be tereat crieance, and not reformation, the last state of society is worse than its first The prison overnment in the family and the state; but, when it becomes the receptacle merely of the criminal, and all ideas of reformation are banished from the hearts of convicts and the minds of keepers, its influence is evil, and only evil continually

Vice, driven from the presence of virtue, with no hope of reforets vice, and becomes daily more and more loathsome Misery is so universal that some share falls to the lot of all; but that hts cannot be scaled, is the fortune of the prison convict only, who has no hope of reformation to virtue or of restoration to the world His is the only misery that is unrelieved; his is the only burden that is too great to be borne To hie of the tree, the murmur of the brook, theocean, would be equally acceptable His separation from nature is no less burdensome than his separation fro fire upon itself, the soul is in despair; the e, then idiotic, and finally goes out in death Governe thereat crimes on which such awful penalties should be visited; but, for the honor of the race, let them be few

We may err in our ideas of the true relations of the prison to the prisoner We call a prison good or bad e see its walls, cells, workshops, its means of security, and points of observation These are very well They are soe a hospital for the sick; and we did once so judge an asylum for the insane

But what to the sick ranite, or marble?

What are towers and turrets, what are wards, halls, and verandas, if withal he is not cheered and sustained by the sy hand? And similar preparations furnish for the insane personal security and physical comfort; but can they

”Minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain?”

And it may be that the old almshouse at Philadelphia, which was nearly destitute of material aids, and had only superintendent, matrons, and assistants, was, all in all, the best insane asylulect the claims of security, discipline, and labor, in the erection of jails and prisons; but to acknowledge these merely will never produce the proper fruit of punishates of iron, bolts, locks, and arh essential to security, without which there could be neither punishment nor reformation, are in the outside, we cannot say what should be done either in the insane hospital or the prison; but we can deduce froeneral conduct In the insane hospital the patient is to be treated as though he were sane; and in the jail the prisoner is to be treated, nearly as h he were virtuous

This rule, especially as much of it as applies to the prisoner, may be recklessness to some, to others folly, to others sin

”The court awards it, and the law doth give it,” is no doubt the essence and strength of governmental justice in the sentence decreed; but it would be a sad calamity if there were no escape from its literal fulfilment And let no one borrow the words of Portia to the Jew, and say to the state,

”Nor cut thou less nor ers beneath the accuht of his sin and its penalty, he should feel that the state is not only just in the language of its law, but overn inspires confidence and hope; and without these there can be no reforht, we are led to say, it is a sad andpower is useless or pernicious It is a _delusion_; for it is the only les mercy with its justice,--the means by which the better sentiments of the prison are ress It is a _public delusion_; for it has infected not only theon in courts and prisons, but its influence is observed upon the bench and in the bar, especially a those who are accustoe, nor shall it be a subject of complaint; but we must not always look upon the prisoner as a criard his claims as a man

It is not often easy, nor always possible, to make the proper distinction between the _character_ and _condition_ of the prisoner But the prison, strange as it eneral law of life It has its public senti minds, as well as the university or the state; it has its ress or parliament As the family, the church, or the school, is the reflection of the best face of society, so the prison is the reflection of the worst face of society But it nevertheless is society, and follows its laith as e

It is said that Abbe Fissiaux, the head of the colony of Marseilles, when visiting Mettray, a kind of refore, who have committed offences without discernment, are sent, asked the colonists to point out to him the three best boys

The looks of the whole body i persons whose conduct had been irreproachable to an exceptional degree He then applied a more delicate test ”Point out to me,” said he, ”the worst boy” All the children ren; but one little urchin came forward, with a pitiful air, and said, in a very low tone, ”_It is me_” Such were the public sentiment and sense of honor, even in a reform school This frankness in the lad was followed by reforood soldier,--the life anticipated forpower is not needed in reforers have discretionary authority; but it is quite essential to the discipline of the prison to let the light of hope into the prisoner's heart Not that all are to enjoy the benefits of executive cle are to be thus favored But, for many years, the Massachusetts prison has been improved and elevated in its tone and sentiment above what it would have been; while, as it is believed, over ninety per cent of the convicts thus discharged have conducted themselves well If the prisoner's conduct has not been, upon the whole, reasonably good, and for a long time irreproachable, he has no chance for clemency; and, whatever may be his conduct, and whatever may be the hopes inspired, he should not be allowed to pass without the prison walls until a friend, labor, and a ho power, if it anticipate the expiration of the legal sentence but a e the whole subsequent life Men, criminals, convicts, are not insensible to kindness; and when the governal sentence, which is usually their ation to so behave as to bring no discredit upon a pohich has been a source of inestione forth with a feeling that the hopes of many whom they had left behind were centred in them

Mr Charles Forster, of Charlestown, says, in a letter to me: ”I have been connected with the Massachusetts State Prison for a period of thirty-eight years, and have always felt a strong interest in the improvement, welfare, and happiness, of the unfortunate men confined within its walls I aratitude for kindly acts and sy and subsequent to their ientleman says further, ”I think that the proportion of persons discharged from prison by executive clemency, who have subsequently been convicted of penal offences, is very sinations have pictured a broad waste or deep gulf between thee words; but there is no e to those who have listened to individual cases of crime and punish to rules and definitions which are necessarily arbitrary and technical; but the moral character of criminals is not very well defined by the rules and definitions which have been applied to their respective cases

Our prisons contain reat and professional criminals,--men who advisedly follow a life of crieneration to a career of infa, mercy to such men would be unpardonable folly Of them I do not now speak But there is another class, who are involved in guilt and its punishh the defects of early education, the e, accident, sudden temptation, or the influence of evil companionshi+p in youth

The field froathered is an extensive one, and its outer limits are near to every hearthstone To all these, prison life, unless it is relieved by a hope of restoration to the world at the hand of mercy, is the school of vice, and a certain preparation for a career of crime As a matter of fact, this class does furnish recruits to supply the places of the hardened villains who annually die, or permanently forsake the abodes of civilizedman who remains in prison until the last day of his sentence is measured by the sun in his course, and then passes into the world, with the race and the mantle of shame upon him, to the society of the companions by whose influence he first fell? For such a one there can be no hope And be it always remembered that there are those without the prison walls, as well asthe wanderers back to obedience and right I was present at the prison in Charlestohen theman whose term had nearly expired The model was cut in wood, after a plan drawn upon sand-paper by an experienced criminal, then recently convicted This old offender was so familiar with the lock, that he was able to reproduce all its parts from memory alone

This fact shows the influence that may be exerted, even in prison, upon the characters of the young and less vicious Now, can any doubt that these classes, as classes, ought to be separated? Nor let the question be met by the old statement, that all communication between prisoners should be cut off Humanity cannot defend, as a permanent system, the plan which shuts up the criht of the human countenance Such penalties foster crimes, whose roots take hold of the state itself