respecting that at Cambridge, about three miles from Boston.

Harvard University is the most ancient and most amply endowed classical establishment in the United States; it was founded in 1638, in pursuance of the will of a clergyman of the name of

culprit. Should such persons as the latter be whipped and dis charged into the same scenes, the same company, the same misery, and the same temptations, and the almost inevitable renewal of their crime and their punishment! Will you convert a single error into an irreparable crime! Or will you not rather place the miserable patient where, by a kindness he will regard, and a discipline he must feel, he will become sensible of his wickedness, and be removed from the dangerous connexions in which it originated. Among such unfortunate criminals there is hope of amendment. From this great and growing class, many may be preserved from ruin, the living witnesses of the excellence of the institutions by which they have been restored to society. That our State Prisons have answered this valuable though moderate expectation, is abundantly proved by an inspection of their records. In the early period of the Philadelphia penitentiary, when it was conducted with indefatigable attention by its phi lanthropic founders, the prison was a school of reformation, and a place of public labour, and of the many who received the Governor's pardon, not one returned a convict.' At a later period out of nearly two hundred persons, who had been recommended to and pardoned by the Governor, only four had returned; the roads in the vicinity of the city so constantly infested with robbers were seldom disturbed by those dangerous characters; the houses, shops, and vessels, so perpetually robbed, no longer experienced those alarming evils. There had been but two instances of burglaries in the city and county for nearly two years.-The early history of the New York State Prison gives the same result, and its recent and present failure to meet the public expectation can be accounted for, without controverting the grounds on which this mode of punishment is justified. In Massachusetts, from the opening of the State Prison in December 1805,

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Harvard, who bequeathed for this purpose the half of his property, amounting to about £800 Sterling. Various Governors of the State, and other individuals, have been its subsequent benefactors, and under the fostering care of the local government it has enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, and

to 15th April 1817, there were received 918 convicts, of whom 79 were afterwards returned, 305 were then in custody, 38 had died, and the remaining 496 had never been brought again within the prison, limits. During the same period 155 had been pardoned, of whom 11 had proved themselves unworthy of the favour, but 144 had not been known to be again the subjects of criminal law. Of those who were liberated, many are known to the officers of that institution to have become industrious and useful citizens. These facts prove the utility of the institution in certain eses, and in a proportion which is gratifying to its advocates; while the farther fact that five convicts had been returned four times each, and one five times, proves also that to expect reformation in every convict is altogether idle. The prescription will not suit every patient, and moral as well as physical disease will sometimes baffle the efforts of human wisdom."

Thus far this judicious writer proves to us the reasonableness and the practicability of the system; he then asserts that these institutions have not accomplished all that might reasonably have been expected of them, and that some of them after having for a time done well, fell into a state of inefficiency and disorganization.

The first cause of their failure was the expense of supporting them. The public had too hastily adopted the idea that a penitentiary should in a great measure support itself, and when a vote was required to defray expenses, and supply deficiencies, the people grumbled and the money was with difficulty obtained. "This expense is a charge upon the public; and to render it as small as possible, the penitentiary character of the establishment is made a secondary consideration. It is no longer a place merely of moral improvement, where industry is enforced as a part of necessary discipline, but it becomes a great workshop, in which every man is labour

has gradually advanced in wealth and literary respectability. The University consists of two departments, the Literary, and the Medical; the latter of which, although an integral part of the institution, occupies buildings in Boston, for the greater convenience of medical students.

ing for the public, and obliged to add as much as possible to the capital stock. The effect is seen in a variety of indulgences granted to the convicts, and to the superior importance which is attached to profit over manners. The institutions themselves are contrived with regard to economy, and as the prisoners increase in numbers a separation becomes impossible, they mingle together in the workshops, are crowded in the cells, and have opportunity by injudicious intercourse to confirm each other's bad habits, and to combine against the natural tendency of their punishmen."

"Another cause exceedingly injurious to the moral effect of these institutions is the character attached in public estimation to the unfortunate inmate even after he quits the walls.-The charitable Quakers who commenced these institutions, did not leave the poor man at the threshold of the prison door, exposed to the wants of poverty, and thrown among the temptations of the world with no safeguard but his unconfirmed moral feelings. They procured employment for him, gave him countenance and character, watched over him with assiduity, and prevented any backward step, by holding out allurements and motives to honesty. The case is now changed, little or no provision is made for the discharged prisoner. The cares of the government do not extend beyond the prison walls. Society marks a man who has once been in confinement with a jealous eye.— Honest men avoid him. The police keep an eye upon his motions. Is a robbery committed, he is the first person suspected. Is labour wanted, he is the last person employed. In fact by the general public sentiment he is driven into the haunts of profligacy and crime.— Whenever these remarks apply, and the discharged convict under the influence of the evils that surround him, is forced upon the commission of new offences, the blame is laid to the nature of his former

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The buildings at Cambridge are eight in number, erected in an enclosed plain of fourteen acres, sheltered on three sides by forest trees, and in the immediate vicinity of an extensive common. Three of the buildings contain the lecture rooms, chapel, library, laboratory, &c. the remainder consist of

punishment, and not, as it ought to be, to the incomplete performance of the duty which the public had assumed. First make the system perfect; establish all the parts of which it is composed and then ascertain the result." North American Review, No. XXVII

Pp. 235 248,

In a more recent number of the same journal the subject has been resumed, and I transcribe the following additional observations on the deterioration which has taken place in the administration and efficiency of the American penitentaries.

"If our State Prisons have not produced all the good effects that have been expected, it is not owing to the nature of these institutions, but to the improvidence of the several legislatures in not preparing adequate room for the number of convicts. The prison of Philadel phia was not originally constructed for this purpose; yet it was successfully administered, until the increase of criminals, and the refusal of the legislature to build another prison, so accumulated the convicts, that all possibility of classification and separation was de, stroyed. It was worse in New York-the prison, originally intended for three hundred, afterwards contained more than double that number, and when we visited it a few years since, a large part of the convicts could not be employed for want of room, and some of the best of them were pardoned out' every month, for no other reason than to make way for new convicts, that the course of justice might not be impeded by the want of room to execute its decrees. This is now remedied in New York, by the establishment of an extensive bridewell, and the erection of a new prison in the western district of the State. Pennsylvania is building a larger prison, expressly adapted to the purposes both of labour, and seclusion." North Ameri

can Review, No. XXXIII. Pp. 419, 420.

apartments for the students, who here as in the English Universities reside within the walls. The largest building is of fine white granite and was erected in 1814; it is said to have cost nearly seventeen thousand pounds sterling: the rest are of brick, and some of the larger ones cost from five to six thousand pounds sterling.

It will be obvious from the above extracts, which convey a very accurate idea of the present state of prison discipline in the United States, that the Penitentiary system has while properly administered answered in a high degree the purposes at once of punishment and reformation; but it is equally obvious that at present the penitentiaries are in a state of partial, if not total inefficiency, arising solely from inattention to the most obvious suggestions of common sense and experience in regard to their management. So universal has been the outcry of the public on this subject, that means have already been taken in some of the States to reform and invigorate the system; and in the last Session of Congress, a Committee was appointed to investigate and report respecting the general state of the penitentiaries throughout the Union. Their report, which is prodigiously long although upon the whole judicious, is concluded by the following "broad positions:" "First, That the penitentiary system, as it now exists in the United States, with all its defects, is preferable to the former systems of punishment in this country. Secondly, That it is capable of being so improved as to become the most judicious and effective system of punishment ever known in ancient or modern times. Thirdly, That where it has been properly administered, as it formerly was in Pennsylvania and New York, it has succeeded and answered the expectations of its early friends. Fourthly, That solitary confinement by night and by day, combined with other regulations suggested in this Report, will remedy all existing evils. Fiftly, That it is the duty of the different States of the Union to proceed without delay to its improvement and perfection. Lastly, That corporal punishments, and the infliction of death, would not