determinate duties were assigned, and they were required to make regular reports at the monthly meetings of the executive committee. At the end of the year each of these sub-committees made full detailed reports of their proceedings, which, with the general report of the executive committee based upon them, and an admirable speech of John Duer, Esq., the chairman of the committee on prison discipline, constitute the materials of the "Second Report."

We regret that our time and space will not permit us to go into a full analysis of these Reports; but we must rest contented with culling a few of the more striking facts and circumstances, happy if we should excite the curiosity of our readers to a perusal of the Reports themselves.

During the first year little more could reasonably have been expected than an exploration of the vast field, and of the nature of the obstacles to be overcome in their difficult undertaking. We are not surprised to find that at the very commencement of their labors they discovered some facts which, while they pointed out the necessity of their enterprise, yet, from their nature and extent, would have proved most discouraging to men less persevering and resolved. The sub-committee on detentions state as follows:

"At the outset of our investigations, we are startled by the consideration of the increase of crime in this city within a few years: a consideration the more interesting, because so much marked contrast with the rest of the state and the Union.

"The business of this committee was necessarily confined to the prisons in this city and in Brooklyn; embracing constantly the cases of at least 1,000 prisoners.

"The repeated visits of the members of the committee to those prisons, have made them familiarly acquainted with the condition and government of them. Their material construction and arrangement, are particularly described in the report of that committee; but their moral condition and influence deserve a more extended notice in this place.

"We have been inexpressibly shocked at the view of the grievous wrong which these institutions are daily inflicting upon the community. And while on one hand we feel the want of language adequately to express our disapprobation, we are, on the other hand, apprehensive, so revolting is the truth, that our statements may be

regarded as exaggerations, or as prompted by some personal feeling of ill-will.

"It appears that there are from seventeen to twenty prisons in this city—including station-houses and police-offices—at which at least 30,000 of our people are confined each year, at an annual expense to the honest portion of the community of over $150,000.

"The first consideration that would strike any one, attempting to investigate the subject, is the entire want of order, system, and organization, which pervades the whole department. It is nominally under the control and supervision of the Commissioner of the Alms House; but his other duties are so onerous, that it is impossible for him to do more than to give casual and occasional glances only at the prisons.

"Hence, there is no attempt to introduce any thing like a system of prison discipline; no efforts at economy, unless occasional feeble and spasmodic attempts at curtailment may be so dignified: no common head to control; no one to inspect or supervise; no one to detect and remove abuses.

"It is not, therefore, matter of surprise that evils should exist, or that they should be of an alarming and serious character. The enumeration of some of the most glaring among them will aid the object we have in view, namely, that of giving a general idea only of the state and condition of our city prisons.

"The average number of persons continually in the two principal prisons during the past year, is about 1,200. And the expense of keeping, governing, and controlling them, which was last year drawn from the city treasury, was $84,959 08.

During the same period, the average number of persons in our state prisons at Auburn and Sing-Sing, was 1,700, and the amount drawn from the state treasury for the same purposes, was $24,803 80.

"So that the state prisoners have cost $14 50 each, the year; while our city prisoners have cost $70 79 each, or about five times as much.

"But the moral influences of our prisons are of much greater importance.

"It is of frequent occurrence, that persons are arrested and detained in some of our houses of detention-sometimes for two or three days, of whom no account is rendered anywhere. And it is manifest, from the present defective organization in this respect, that the liberty of the friendless and unprotected portion of our population, must be very much at the mercy of our police officers; and that without a more perfect system of inspection and returns, there is great room for bad men to abuse the power with which they may be trusted.

"Persons are frequently detained in prison after the expiration of their terms of imprisonment; sometimes because they are forgotten, sometimes because the prisoners desire to remain, and sometimes because the officers think it for the interest of the corporation that they should be detained. It is indeed a general practice at the penitentiary, never to let a prisoner out until he asks to be discharged; so that, if he chooses to remain and be supported at the public expense, his object can be easily attained.

"Hence it is, that there are persons at that prison who make that their home, and who have spent there the most part of their time for years.

Very many are confined at the penitentiary, not because they have committed any crime or offence, but avowedly only because they are destitute or diseased. This includes a class of persons who go to the police office and give themselves up,' as they term it, because they want a place of refuge; a large number of diseased prostitutes, who go there as to a hospital; and many strangers and foreigners, who, in their ignorauce of our institutions, apply for relief to the police office, and are relieved by being sent to the penitentiary. "The crowning evil, however, arises out of the manner in which the prisoners are confined together. So unrestrained is the intercourse among them, especially at the penitentiary, that we are presented with all the revolting features of the very worst prisons of the Old World."

The sub-committee on prison discipline were enjoined to inspect the prisons, both state and county, and report as to their actual condition, and the causes of their defects. Notwithstanding the multiplicity and urgency of their private affairs, they visited, during the year, the prisons in eight of the counties of the state, and in their report have pointed out their most glaring defects. The most essential is the want of a system of effective inspection; though the statutes have made some provision for this purpose, yet it appears that in some of the counties this duty was never performed, and in others very imperfectly, and that great evil has arisen in consequence. The superintendents should consist of enlightened and benevolent persons, who should possess the power of making and enforcing reasonable and judicious regulations for the government of the prisoners. No more suitable persons could be found, in whose hands to entrust this power, than the

members of the New-York Prison Association. An application was made for this purpose to the Legislature, during the session 1844-5, which failed, doubtless, from the true character of the association not being then well understood; but we are convinced that this ought, and that at no very remote period will be, accomplished. A want of efficient superintendence has actually led, within a few years, to retrogradation in the prison discipline of the state. Many evils have arisen from the mode of appointment of the officers of prisons, which has become an affair of party politics; hence their selection is more dependent on their dexterity as partizans, than their fitness for the office. Yet, as the committee justly remark,

"There is no business where so much

depends upon the peculiar qualifications of the persons charged with it. It is a duty not to be learned in a day, and its faithful performance involves a union of rare qualities:-firmness, benevolence, knowledge of human nature, and experience.

is different, and has been attended with "The course pursued in Pennsylvania the happiest results. The governors of her state prisons are appointed by the judiciary, and thus has been secured a permanency and uniformity which has made her penitentiary system a just cause of state pride, and enabled her citizens to mature and perfect their plan. And while, under such a course, her progress has been steadily onward, ours, in this state, has been at least stationary; and the prisons of other states are appealed to as the models of the plan which originated with us, but which we have failed to mature and perfect."

There is no question connected with this subject of such vital importance as the personal government of prisoners, especially convicts in our penitentiaries. At the present time philanthropists are divided between the two general methods, well known as the separate and silent systems. Each possesses advantages, while each is obnoxious to very grave objections. The separate system, or isolation, with many things to recommend it, is repugnant to one of the strongest instincts of our nature. Man is eminently a social being; it is not therefore surprising that absolute seclusion not only causes present wretchedness, but not unfrequently

stitations of the kind. I believed not only that this could be done, but that it could be effected by means which had not hitherto been tried viz.: by substituting kindness for force, and other restraints, imposed through the mental constitutions of the prisoners, for those founded on fear and suffering, or growing out of physical inability to be disobedient and refractory.

"The proposed reformation was entered upon immediately after the 1st of April. The first step taken in it, viz. the systematizing of details, in which there was great tact, together with the dread entertained by some of the more powerful among the refractory convicts, that their reign would terminate with the introduction of order and discipline, led to an early and frightful outbreak against the new state of things.

"This was promptly quelled, and followed by the infliction on the offenders of our longest terms of solitary confinement. Order was thus restored, and no approach to any thing of a like kind has ever been witnessed since. Firmness and kindness were the agents principally used thereafter, in advancing and perfecting the discipline."

She further adds

"The demeanour of the most violent and refractory, among the old convicts, has become subdued and gentle. Imperatives are very rarely issued, the mere expression of a wish, being sufficient to produce ready and cheerful obedience. Not a single instance of personal violence between the prisoners, or towards their officers, has occurred during the six months. And all this change has been effected by the mildest form of government, consistent with the preservation of authority.

"Except in quelling the first outbreak before alluded to, and in the case of two other convicts, who for some time exhibited the most incorrigible tendency to disobedience, no severe punishments have ever been inflict ed, and even these last have now, after solitary confinement for several weeks, subsided into a quiet and well-ordered deportment, which there is hope to believe, may be maintained by careful and judicious management on the part of those who have them in charge."

These statements are sustained by the Inspectors.

The report of the sub-committee on discharged convicts is very full and satisfactory; it affords the strongest encouragement to perseverance in this generous enterprise. The committee state-p. 44, and seq.

"The great object was to prevent, as far as practicable, discharged prisoners from relapsing into crime, by securing them from the temptations of want, and affording them the means of obtaining an honest livelihood.

"In the male department, an office was obtained. in December last, at No. 13 Pine street,

in order that a place might be provided where discharged prisoners could apply for aid, for succour, and for advice; and where they might be assured of receiving that assistance

and cheering encouragement which is so es sential to their permanent reformation. To that end an agent was selected, whose business it was constantly to attend there, represent the society in its beneficent purposes, and execute its intentions of affording discharged convicts the means of obtaining em ployment.

"In June last, a place of resort for liberated female prisoners was established, denominated "The Home;" two matrons selected to take care of, and manage it, and a committee of benevolent ladies organized to superintend and control its operations.

"In these two establishments, 229 discharged prisoners have been relieved:-Males, 122, Females, 107.

"Many of those who have come to us for aid, have been sustained by us for a while, until by their own efforts, encouraged by the kindly sympathy of our agent, they have been able to procure employment for themselves. For others, employment has been obtained through our instrumentality, and by the aid of tools which we have provided.

"So far as it is practicable, we make it our duty to keep run of these persons, and obtain from them and their employers accounts of their progress in the work of regeneration. We have thus certain and reliable reports of the continued good conduct of seventy of that number; a proportion beyond our expectations, and exceedingly encouraging to fature efforts.

Aside from the temptations to which these poor creatures are subjected, by the evil associations into which they are frequently compelled, and the dangers they often incur from necessity and want; they suffer, beyond conception, the blighting effects of a feeling of despair, and the destroying influences of a conviction, in their own minds, that no man

trusts them.

"No one, unless he has witnessed the operation of this feeling, can form an adequate idea of its force and its influence; nor can any one, except from actual experience. justly conceive the extent of the benefits resulting from a display. on the part of our officers, of a generous confidence in the sincerity of their repentance, and a cordial encouragement of their efforts at reformation."

There is also an able "Report of the Female Department of Discharged Convicts," signed by the first directress and corresponding secretary, Mrs. Eaton and Mrs. Kirkland. It furnishes conclusive internal evidence that these pious and benevolent ladies are not inferior to their brethren in zeal and intelligence. We will not mutilate this document, but urge the reader to examine it; he will find all the important transactions of this departmentably detailed.

We are admonished that it is time to bring our remarks to a close. All the actors in this noble enterprise are entitled to the highest commendation and

the gratitude of the public. We are struck with the persevering zeal and genuine humanity of all-especially of its originator and animating spirit, who has devoted the influence of his high official station, the energies of his clear and vigorous intellect, and his indefatigable personal services in maturing and carrying into practical operation this humane undertaking. But though we think no one can peruse these interesting "Reports" without admiration at the course pursued by this distinguished individual, yet we feel that this allusion may be regarded as in some degree invidious and unjust, where all have done so much and so well. It reconciles us to our kind, and gives us higher and better views of our own nature, to witness the holy competition thus displayed by some of the most eminent of our citizens, in endeavoring to vindicate and assist back to society and themselves this unfortunate and degraded class from the infamy into which they had fallen. One could scarcely have ex

pected to find such a number of gifted individuals, persons occupying the highest rank in society; professional men, whose services are eagerly sought at any price; our most active and successful men of business; and the most delicate and accomplished ladies, accustomed only to the society of the pure and refined; all voluntarily relinquishing their private occupations, and zealously devoting so much money, time, thought, and personal exertion to the offensive details of this most humane, but in many instances revolting undertaking. There is one other feature in these "Reports" to which we think it just to allude: it is the good taste that pervades them. Though originating from so many different sources, there is no pretension or mawkishness about them; on the contrary, the style of all is marked by directness, simplicity, good sense, and an earnest but enlightened apprehension of the proper objects of the association. R.