This most excellent and learned paper should be published in full with this report, but its length and economy in the public printing forbid. The public, however, will be well paid by reading the extracts which treat of the prevailing wants, viz.: The abolition of enforced idleness in county jails, reformatory sentences and the removal of partizan politics from the management and control of reformatory and penal institutions.

The learned doctor said. "There is nothing that so amazes observant and thoughtful foreigners, who interest themselves in the study and improvement of prison discipline as the endless fluctuations in the administration and incessant changes in the staffs of American prisons, arising from the undue - we believe we do not go too far in saying the dominant influence of partisan politics in their management. Again and again have members of this committee heard these men declare that they did not see how it was possible, amid the embarrassments and obstacles necessarily resulting from such a state of things, to accomplish anything in the way of solid progress and reform. And, indeed, it would be impossible but for the elasticity, energy, strong mother-wit, and wonderful pliability and power of ready adaptation in the American character. There can be no doubt that the radical, the supreme defect in the prison systems of America lies in the practice of political appointments and the consequent brevity of official tenure and instability of administration. Now, we are far from making war on party politics. Within its appropriate sphere, this agent in our civil life has an important and generous function. Without its restraining force, the ruling power, drunk with prerogative, unawed by the vigilance of opponents, and released from all feeling of responsibility, would degenerate into despotism, and tyranny would hold perpetual carnival. But there are some things which it touches only to mar or to ruin. There are precious interests, in reference to which the warning must be sounded, 'touch not, handle not.' Religion is one of these; education is another; and, surely, the penal, reformatory, and preventive institutions of a state constitute a third, since they combine, in a high degree, the characteristics of both, being, if they are what they ought to be, at once religious and educational. We cannot stay to enter into an argument on this point, for which there is no time; but we must and do emphatically avow the conviction, that the system of political appointments, which necessarily involves a low grade of official qualification and

constant changes in the prison staff, renders nugatory, to a great extent, the whole theory of our penitentiary system. Inspection may correct isolated abuses, philanthropy may relieve isolated cases of distress, and religion may effect isolated moral cures, but genuine, comprehensive, systematic, and above all, permanent improvement is impossible.

"There is another measure of reform, which probably will not, as an actual policy, carry all votes, though few will deny the abstract justice of it. It is the substitution of indefinite reformatory sentences, in place of sentences measured by the mere lapse of time. The principle, in this precise form, was first announced by Mr. Frederic Hill, of England, the eminent author of 'Crime; its Causes and Cure,' and for many years Inspector of County and Borough Prisons, first in Scotland and afterwards in England. The principle has been accepted and ably advocated by many distinguished penologists on both sides of the Atlantic, notably by Despine of France, Guillaume of Switzerland, Matthew Davenport Hill of England, and Brockway of America. Who of us that attended the Cincinnati Congress can forget the magnificent and powerful argument in support of this principle, as given by the last named of these gentlemen, in his paper entitled 'The Ideal of a True Prison System '? The principle follows, as a necessary, logical result from that theory of public punishment which teaches that the end of such punishment is the protection of society, and that society is best protected by the reformation of the transgressor. By this theory the criminal is restrained of his liberty because he is a dangerous man; his unrestricted freedom would be a constant menace and peril to society. It is, therefore, equally imperative, on the double ground of right and security, that society let him go as soon as it is rationally convinced that it will be safe to do so, and that it holds him in durance so long as, on the other hand, it is rationally convinced that he would, immediately on his liberation, return to a career of spoliation and crime. For what reason is there either to further restrain him after the object of his imprisonment has been gained, or to set him free before that point has been reached? On the former supposition, his continued restraint would be unjust both to the criminal and to society; to the criminal because the necessity for such restraint would have ceased; to society, because it would thereby impose a needless burden upon itself. And the latter procedure would be worse than absurd, be

cause there would be the same reason for continuing the detention that originally existed for imposing it; in other words, for keeping as for putting him in prison. Still, however consonant this principle may be to reason and natural justice, it must be owned that there is a formidable difficulty in the way of its practical application. If, therefore, it is ever to be so applied, it is likely that it must be under certain limitations. The courts must assign a maximum duration to the punishment, leaving a discretion, greater or less in extent, to the authorities which are charged with carrying out the sentence, precisely as is done every day, with such excellent effect, in sentencing juvenile criminals to our reform schools. But it is hardly worth while to go further into the argument at present, as this also, is a reform which, like so many others, must wait for the banishment of politics as the controlling force in the government of our prisons; for what could be more insane than to commit to men, who are never permitted to get beyond the A B C of prison management, the decision of a question which would be safely answered only by the highest intelligence united to the widest experience.

"But there is another reform of immediate and pressing necessity, involving warfare upon an evil deeply seated, widely spread, and of the most formidable proportions-an evil intrenched in interest, custom, prejudice, and, above all, a popular indifference, as inexplicable as it is unpardonable. We refer to our county jails, two thousand or more in number, as they exist to-day, and have existed ever from the northern lakes to the southern gulf, and from the eastern coast to the western. When de Beaumont and de Tocqueville reported, nearly half a century ago, to the French government upon our penitentiary system, they spoke of our county jails as among the worst prisons they had ever anywhere seen.' And to-day another intelligent foreigner (Mr. Wm. Tallack, Secretary of the Howard Association, England), who knows whereof he affirms, from observation as well as books, in a paper sent to this congress, says: It is a strange anomaly that the vast energy of the American people, who originated the congress of London, does not appear to have been able to effect any decided improvement as yet in the very numerous county jails, which form the largest class of American prisons, institutions in which the worst evils of congregate idleness, imperfect separation even of the sexes, corrupt officials, and every kind of bad construction, are so general as to re

tain the United States, in respect to the great majority of their jails, on the low level of Spain, Turkey, Egypt and other mere semi-barbarous naticns.' Though from a foreigner, 'this witness is true;' as true as that by a poet of Crete concerning his own countrymen when he declared: The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bullies.' It is so true, that if, by some supernatural process, our two thousand jails could be unroofed, and the scenes they conceal be thus instantly exposed to our view, a shriek would go up from this congress and this community that would not only reach every nook and corner of the land, but be heard, in Scripture and phrase, to the very 'ends of the earth.' There might and would be a few cheering spots, little oases scattered here and there, in the wide desert of obscenity, profanity, wretchedness, filth, enforced idleness, seething corruption, and dreary moral desolation, that would at all points meet the gaze and make every nerve quiver with horror. Truly there is needed a new Howard to go from jail to jail throughout the length and breadth of the land. A new State of Prisons' is wanted, in which the manifold wrong and abuses practiced in our common jails shall be brought to the light after the manner in which the great prison reformer of the last century, in his 'State of Prisons,' dealt with the jails and Bridewells of that day."

"Our whole system of common jails needs, not simply improvement, but revolution. It is a herculean labor that we propose; but it can be done. Truth, patience, zeal, faith, work, are essential elements in the problem; but, these elements given, the solution is certain. The system as now existing must be approached prudently, no doubt, and in weakness of wisdom; but nevertheless, it must be approached, assailed and battered with the weapons of reason, of argument, and of godlike charity, till it is swept away by the force of the assault, and a new and better system is adopted in its place."

The report concludes with a brief review of the proposition of Mr. Edwin Hill, of London, to forbid the giving of house-room to criminals, and the suggestions of that gentleman are commended as instructive and valuable in a high degree.

The entire report fills thirty-one octavo pages of printed matter, and is a valuable part of the transactions of the Congress, which transactions are now being compiled by the secretary of the association, Dr. E. C. Wines, of the city of New York, and will soon be

given in book form to the public. Following this paper came the report of the committee on Discipline, also the report of the committee on Discharged Prisoners. After the reading of these sev eral papers, a general discussion followed, participated in by the practical men in prison management. This debate took quite a wide range. Some twenty ten-minute extemporaneous speeches were made. This report can only give the outlines of five or six of those who enjoy good reputations as wardens of prisons.

Mr. Cordier of the Alleghany County Work House, Pa., formerly Commissioner of the Wisconsin State Prison, was the first speaker. He said he had no system of his own. Since he became connected with penal institutions he had found that labor was one of the fundamental principles of prison reform, and further, that that labor must be free and voluntary. You can't make men work by force if they don't want to; you can't make him good if he has not the moral strength and disposition to begin that work himself. They must be convinced that labor is a blessing, not a curse: a privilege, not a punishment. The first lesson I teach them-'If you work like a man, you shall have a portion of your earnings; if you shirk it, we shall deprive you of the privilege.' What they earn cannot be taken from them. I have never punished a man for refusing to work. It took but a few days for him to find out that labor is a blessing and a privilege. If that was what was meant by free labor by the gentlemen, he was in favor of it in workhouses, jails and penitentiaries. One word more the result: No prison in the United States can show better behaved men, while it has been more than self-supporting, and while no punishment has ever been inflicted within it. When we succeed our prisoners will rejoice, because they know they did it by their enterprise and industry." Mr. Seaman of Michigan, said there had been too much talk about brotherly love to suit his taste and experience; too much talk about moral suasion, and about work without coercion. In proof he read the account of the murder of a jail keeper by the murderer Joe Waltz, and asked these benevolent gentlemen if they would treat such a man as a brother. If so, how is crime to be repressed, or men taught that the way of the transgressor is hard? His experience, and it was not a short one, was, that a portion of mankind can only be repressed by the fear of punishment. The protection. of the community is the end of criminal punishment. He read other recent horrible murders, to show that a portion of mankind