  Vagrant Children of New York.—An organization has recently been effected in the city of New York, under the title of the “Children’s Aid Society,” the object of which is “to bring humane and kindly influences to bear on homeless boys—to preach in various modes the Gospel of Christ to the vagrant children of New York.” As an evidence of the need of some such agency, it is stated that in one Ward alone (the eleventh) there were in 1852, out of 12,000 children between the ages of five and sixteen, only 7,000 who attended school, and only 2,500 who went to Sunday-school, leaving 5,000 without the common privileges of education, and about 9,000 destitute of public religious influence! The views of the founders of this charity are summarily presented in a circular as follows: A large multitude of children live in the city who cannot be placed in asylums, and yet who are uncared for and ignorant and vagrant. We propose to give to these work, and to bring them under religious influences. A central office has been taken, and an agent, (Charles L. Brace,) has been engaged to give his whole time to efforts for relieving the wants of this class. As means shall come in, it is designed to district the city, so that hereafter every Ward may have its agent, who shall be a friend to the vagrant child. “Boys’ Sunday Meetings” have already been formed, which we hope to see extended until every quarter has its place of preaching to boys. With these we intend to connect “Industrial Schools,” where the great temptations to this class, arising from want of work, may be removed, and where they can learn an honest trade. Arrangements have been made with manufacturers, by which, if we have the requisite funds to begin, five hundred boys, in different localities, can be supplied with paying work. We hope too, especially to be the means of draining the city of these children, by communicating with farmers, manufacturers or families in the country, who may have need of such for employment. When homeless boys are found by our agents, we mean to get them homes in the families of respectable, needy persons in the city, and to put them into the way of an honest living. It has been stated, in the public prints, that of 16,000 commitments for crime to the prisons of New York during the year, at least one-fourth were minors, and it is estimated that not less than 10,000 children in the city are daily suffering all the evils of vagrancy. Street Begging in New York.—We have had occasion more than once to refer, in terms of high commendation, to the New York City organization for the relief of the poor, corresponding in its main features to our Union Benevolent Association. We regret to notice very loud and frequent complaints of the continuance and increase of street-begging, notwithstanding the laudable exertions of the Society. A leading city newspaper has said within a week or two, that upwards of a half million of dollars is annually spent by the authorities and various societies, in the way of charity, “yet our streets are thronged with beggars of all descriptions, and particularly the avenues and streets up town, in almost any of which, upon an average you can see from thirty to fifty going from house to house, to the excessive annoyance of families, who are often abused and insulted by them, because you do not meet their demands. In fact it has become a nuisance of the worst magnitude.” There is much reason to apprehend that such nuisances must work their own abatement. If our authorities were strong enough and independent enough, to lay hold of the boys and girls who constitute the materials from which street-beggars are manufactured, and compel them (as a matter of public safety) to submit to the discipline of an educational and industrial school, it would make a bright opening in the prospect. Or, if every man, woman and child who is found begging in the street, were transferred at once to some charitable institution, (if they have infirmities which prevent them from labor,) or to some working institution, (if they are able-bodied,) and there put to some wholesome labor in exchange for their sustenance and clothing, we should not be without hope. But we see no way of suppressing the evil, if neither of these methods is feasible. New York Prison Association.—We have seen only newspaper reports of the proceedings at the eighth anniversary of this active and very useful Association. We understand that their condemnation of the yoke and the shower, as modes of punishment, is very emphatic and unqualified, and among the interesting facts which are drawn from their report, we select the following:— In the city of New York, since 1848, disorderly conduct (in almost every instance the result of strong drink) has steadily increased from 703 to 2,660, or 278 per cent.; intoxication has increased about 75 per cent., and the two together from 5,579 to 11,280. By a comparison of the prison statistics for the last five years, it appears that crimes against property have increased only about 50 per cent.; but that crimes against the person have increased 129 per cent., or from 1,300 in 1843 to 2,920 in 1852. The increase has been the greatest in the highest crimes. Thus we find assaults to kill were 25 in 1848, and 39, 59, 61 and 75 in 1852, or three-fold. Manslaughter, in 1848, was 3, and then 4, 16, 11 in 1852, almost four-fold. Murder in 1848 was 9, and 9, 15, 21 and 56 in 1852, or more than six-fold. Ninety per cent. of the whole number committed to this prison during the past year, were intemperate! The returns of sixteen State Prisons, for the year 1851, give us a grand total of 4,507 prisoners, 3,006 of whom were imprisoned for offences against property, and 784 against the person. It is stated that there is a greater number of cases of bigamy and perjury in the State of New York, than in all the other fifteen States; there being twenty-one cases of bigamy in New York, and only fifteen in the other States; and seventeen cases of perjury to three in all the other States. The average period of confinement in Connecticut is six years, seven months, twenty-nine days; and in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania it is only two years, six months and three days. New York State Prisons.—The report of the State Penitentiaries of New York bear date December 1, and show that 129 more convicts were in custody at that time than in December, 1851. Of 1843, the whole number in confinement, 924 were at Sing Sing, 752 at Auburn and 167 at Clinton. One hundred and forty-three pardons were granted, or about 1 in every 12 convictions! The expenses of all the prisons exceeded the earnings by several thousands of dollars, showing the fallacy of the argument so potent with most Legislatures, that by associating prisoners in labor they become a source of profit, while separating them involves great expense. The Clinton prison is going largely into the iron business and wants more hands. We would respectfully suggest, whether there are not many persons at large in New York, and some quite considerable in importance and respectable in appearance, too, who would find appropriate employment there. There has been some increase in the frequency of punishments by the yoke, the shower bath, the ball and chain, and solitude. Of 613 commitments, two-thirds confessed intemperate habits. How many of the rest were moderate drinkers does not appear. The average degree of education in the convicts received is less than in some former reports. Idiots in New York.—There are two thousand eight hundred idiots in the State of New York. The report of the superintendent of the Idiot Asylum, near Albany, contains the following interesting passage:—“We Be beforehand with the Tempter!—A friend tells us of a case in which a young girl of considerable personal attraction, was rescued from impending danger. Her mother was a widow with very scanty means of support. This girl had a taste for, and some skill in music. Had been at the public schools, and could read and write with facility, and was indeed respectably educated for one in her station. Her mother had determined to take boarders, and to give an air of gentility to her house, she had also made arrangements to hire a piano. The introduction of the class of boarders which the mother expected, would have exposed the child to great danger. A Christian friend saw this, and by timely and judicious efforts succeeded in securing for her a situation where she would be protected and prepared for usefulness, and for gaining a respectable livelihood. How much more hopeful such simple preventive measures are, than those which (though equally well meant) come later, and are at best but remedial in their character. New Penitentiary in Massachusetts.—We notice in the proceedings of the Legislature of Massachusetts that it is proposed to build a new State Prison. It is but a year or two since the Charlestown prison was greatly enlarged, so as to meet what was supposed to be the demand for convict-accommodation. It is earnestly to be hoped, that if a new prison should be erected in that State, the principle of separation will be adopted. If the two systems could be once fairly tried in the actual presence of the people of that ancient and intelligent Commonwealth, we should have strong confidence that the groundless prejudices against convict-separation would disappear, and that her example would be set as effectually for the furtherance of correct views on the important subject of prison discipline, as it has heretofore been cited for the furtherance of misapprehension and error. State Prison at Charlestown, Mass.—The earnings of the inmates of the Charlestown State Prison, for the year ending September 30th, 1852, We have known a succession of annual reports of State prisons to be published, in which the earnings of the convicts, over and above the expenditures were quite “showy,” but by and by came a change in the administration, and a balance appears against the concern, sufficient to swallow up all the previously reported excess of earnings. Each report of a favorable year made its impression on the public mind, and hundreds of thousands who were misled by it, will never see a notice of the detection of the error,—to use no harsher term. We do not mean to intimate that there is any reason to distrust the foregoing item, but simply to admonish the reader that such statements are always to be taken with many grains of allowance. Illinois Penitentiary.—We understand that this institution is leased for a term of years to a person, who allows the State a certain sum for the labor of the convicts, &c. The report before us embraces the years 1851 and 1852. On the first of January, 1851, the prison contained 170 convicts. Since that time 38 have died, 41 have been pardoned, 1 has escaped, and 168 have been discharged by expiration of sentence—making the whole number discharged within the past two years, 248. During the same period, 295 have been received, and the whole number now in confinement is 207. Fourteen only were born in the State of Illinois! New State Reform School.—The Legislature of New Hampshire at its last June session, received a report from a Board of Commissioners for the establishment of a State Reform School, to be located in the town of Concord, the cost not to exceed $35,000, and to be planned for the accommodation of 300 boys, but finished at present for 120. An eligible site has been obtained, and we hope soon to hear that the institution is conferring wide and lasting benefits upon the community. Juvenile Offenders.—At the Somersetshire Sessions, held lately at Wells, England, an interesting discussion took place on the subject of the punishment and reformation of juvenile offenders. The subject was brought before the Court by the reading of a circular, in which the magistrates were called upon to adopt a memorial to the Marquis of Lansdowne on this important subject. Mr. Lloyd Baker said he had had the subject under his consideration for the last fifteen years, and he laid before the Court statistics referring to the criminal career of a number of youths at that moment confined in the Gloucester County Prison, showing that they had been, most of them, previously convicted once or twice; that this kind of punishment, instead of having a moral effect upon them, appeared only to have hardened them in crime by their coming in contact with other bad adult characters, and that their trial and imprisonment had cost the county from $75 to $100 a-piece. His argument was in favor of an entirely new system of juvenile reformation. He was followed by other magistrates, who spoke of the course imposed upon them, to sentence mere children to confinement in a prison, as a most unsatisfactory one. There was no moral effect in such punishments, but, on the contrary, the effect was to break down the first barrier to crime, and it was found that the shame of imprisonment was overcome. One of them expressed an opinion that what was wanted was a public receptacle for offenders of this class who were not properly “prisoners,” Singular Avocation and Mode of Life in London.—In a case of assault brought before a police-court, a most extraordinary character appeared as a witness. The man is by profession a thorough subterranean rat-catcher, for the supply of those who keep sporting dogs. One-half of his life is spent in quest of prey from the whole range of the sewerage of London. Furnished with a bull’s eye lantern, a good-sized folding trap, and a short rake, he enters the main sewer, at the foot of Blackfriar’s Bridge, and pursues his dangerous avocation, waist-deep in mud and filth of every description. The sewers literally swarm with rats, which he catches by hand, and places them in his cage as easy as if they were young kittens. His underground journeys extend for miles. He has been under Newgate, and along Cheapside to the Mansion House. He has traversed from Holborn to Islington, closely inspecting all the passages that enter the grand sewer of the mighty metropolis. On one occasion, an obstruction occurred to a drain at the foot of Holborn Hill. Terms were speedily agreed upon, and our subterranean explorer started off to the foot of Blackfriar’s Bridge, and in half an hour his voice was heard down the gully-hole; he speedily cleared away the obstruction, and received his reward, thus saving the expense of breaking up the roadway. It is not, however, to the rats alone that he pays his attention; he frequently falls in with a rich prize, particularly in the City sewers. On one occasion he found a silk purse, containing gold and silver; on another a gold watch and seals, numbers of silver spoons, rings and other articles of value. He has been three times attacked with the typhus fever, but rapidly recovered on each occasion. Death from Separation!—A London paper tells us, that Mr. Bedford, the coroner for Westminster, held an inquest lately in Millbank Penitentiary, touching the death of Thomas Wilkinson, a convict, aged nineteen years, a clothdresser, who was found one Sunday morning lying dead and bleeding on the floor of his cell, having cut his throat with a razor which was given him to shave, during the momentary absence of the warder in charge. From the question of convict prison discipline having recently been slightly agitated in the public journals, the separate system was inquired into by the coroner, who asked Dr. Baily if he could throw any light on the case, to guide the jury as to the cause of the act. Dr. Baily thought that it was brooding over the length of his sentence, and stated further that, during eighteen years, in that prison, from 1824 to 1842, with an average of 454 prisoners, only three had committed suicide, but then their sentences were only two, three or four years. Again, in the ten years as a convict prison, from 1843 to 1853, there had been thirteen suicides. So that he thought it was more the length of the sentences than the separate confinement, although he must own that the latter would accelerate or aggravate any disease which might be on a prisoner, and also tend to suicide, by giving them an opportunity when they would be brooding over a long prospect of imprisonment. The jury returned a verdict to the effect that the deceased destroyed himself during a state of temporary insanity, brought on by the separate system! We have put a few words in italics to mark the absurdity of such a verdict. (1.) No evidence of insanity is stated, except that which the fatal Murders in Philadelphia.—It is our painful duty to record three deliberate and atrocious murders committed within the bounds of the city of Philadelphia since our last issue. The first was committed in broad day, in one of the most frequented parts of the city, upon a man in his own store, and was attended with circumstances of ferocity rarely equalled. The perpetrator of the deed has not been discovered. The second was the wanton butchery of an unoffending man, apparently without any motive, except the indulgence of a blood-thirsty malevolence. The third was committed upon two unprotected females, and with a ferocity of which we should hope few human beings are susceptible, even in their most savage state. The only apparent motive for the cruel and dastardly deed was a pittance of money. How far the wretched monster on whom the guilt of this double murder has been fixed by the law and the testimony, may have been implicated in other deeds of blood ascribed to him by popular rumor, it is not for us to say, but we suppose there is no doubt that he was not long since a convict in the State Penitentiary at Sing Sing, N. Y., and was pardoned by the Executive of that State! How much of his term of punishment was abridged by this interposition of extraordinary clemency, we are not informed; but if the full execution of his sentence would have carried the period of his confinement beyond the 10th of March, 1853, it is clear that the abridgment of it opened the way for the terrible deed which we have now recorded. And are we not justified in holding the pardoning power responsible, in foro conscientiÆ, at least, for the consequences of taking a convict out of the hands of the ministers of justice, while he is undergoing wholesome discipline by their order, and sending him back into the community as one whose punishment was greater than he deserved? Who knows but that an ill-judged interposition of Executive power may sometimes breed a contempt for public authority, and stimulate a reckless convict to more audacious violations of law! Missouri Insane Asylum.—This institution is located in Fulton. It was opened a year since, and has received 70 patients. There are 460 acres of land attached to it, 30 of which are under culture. Dr. T. R. H. Smith is the principal physician. Missouri Penitentiary.—On the 20th of December there were 232 convicts in custody, of whom 146 were from the county of St. Louis. Of the countries of their nativity, Ireland furnishes the largest number, and Germany the next largest. Of the States of the Union, Pennsylvania furnishes the largest number. We are happy to learn that the physician is a decided advocate of convict-separation. IT IS SAID,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.We have to express our thanks to various friends for their thoughtful kindness in forwarding us copies of reports, and among them are the following: Annual reports of the Officers of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum for 1852. Twentieth Annual Report of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, Mass. for 1852. Report of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane for the year 1852. Tenth Annual Report of the State Lunatic Asylum of the State of New York, 1852. Annual Report of the State Lunatic Asylum at Harrisburg, Penn. Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Eastern State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, 1852. Report of the Inspectors of the Western State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania for 1852. Sixteenth Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, 1852. Twentieth Annual Report of the Managers of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind for 1852. Report of the State Prison of New Jersey for 1852. Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Reform School at Westborough, Mass. Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, 1851-2. Act of Incorporation, By-Laws, &c., of New York Juvenile Asylum. Twenty-Eighth Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents of New York, 1852. Annual Report of Board of Managers of Philadelphia Charity Schools, 1852. Report of Managers of the Magdalen Society for 1852. Annual Report of the Managers of the Boston Asylum and Farm School for 1852. Eight Report of the Baltimore Manual Labor School for Indigent Boys for 1852. Report of Commissioners on the State Reform School of Pennsylvania. Premium for an Essay on Juvenile Delinquency.—At a meeting of the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge, Philadelphia, the following preamble and resolution were adopted, viz: Whereas, The increase of Juvenile Delinquency in all the large cities of our country, has claimed the attention of philanthropists; and whereas, the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge, Philadelphia, are desirous that errors in modes of training the young, and other causes co-operating to produce the evil referred to, may be presented in such a form as to claim the serious consideration of parents and guardians throughout the land; therefore, Resolved, That the Board of Managers do offer a premium of one hundred dollars for the best essay, and fifty dollars for that next in order of merit, to be awarded by a committee of literary gentlemen: Provided, that such essays shall not exceed fifty octavo pages in length, and shall be contributed before the first day of July, A. D. 1853; and whether successful or not in competition, shall be at the absolute disposal of the Board of Managers. In accordance with the above preamble and resolution, the premiums therein named are now offered, without restriction as to the residence of competitors. The Rt. Rev. Alonzo Potter, Frederick A. Packard, Esq., and Stephen Colwell, Esq., have consented to act as the Committee, to examine and adjudge as to the merits of the Essays offered in competition. Competitors for the above named premiums, will please address their manuscripts to “John Biddle, No. 6 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia;” and send therewith, their names and places of residence, under sealed envelopes. As the object of the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge in offering the above-named premiums, is mainly to call the attention of parents and guardians to errors in the prevalent modes of training the young—a subject which should claim the attention of every reader—the undersigned would call the attention of editors of newspapers generally, throughout the United States, to this advertisement, and ask the favor of an insertion of it, or of the more important parts of it, in the columns of their papers. By order of the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge. THOS. P. COPE, President of H. of R. Philadelphia, Feb. 17, 1853. (Continued from second page of cover.) highly valuable periodical, communicating much and various important information upon the subject of which it treats. It is the only publication of the kind in the country, is certainly a very much needed one, and ought, therefore, to be well sustained by the public. From the Episcopal Recorder. This periodical gives a large amount of information on Prison Discipline, and cannot fail to interest such as grieve over the sufferings occasioned by crime, and regard the imprisoned criminal as still belonging to our common humanity, and needing the commiseration of the wise and good. From the Public Ledger. We have received the October number of the Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy, published under the direction of the Philadelphia Society for alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. It is stored with interesting matter. From the Presbyterian. We have been reading with great interest the Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy. AN INQUIRYINTO THE ALLEGED TENDENCY OF THE SEPARATION OF CONVICTS, ONE FROM THE OTHER, TO PRODUCE DISEASE AND DERANGEMENT. By a Citizen of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: E. C. & J. Biddle. 1849. It is, as might possibly be anticipated from the residence of the author, an elaborate and ardent defence of the separate system of confinement. The charge of its peculiar tendency to induce disease and insanity, is altogether denied, and the testimony of the successive physicians to the Eastern State Penitentiary, during a term of nearly twenty years, goes very satisfactorily to warrant the denial. The author is not, however, inclined to rest at this, but carries the war into the enemies’ camp. The chapter entitled Medical Practice, in a Congregate Prison, is calculated to attract attention, from the positions laid down in it, and their startling illustrations, deduced from the well known case of Abner Rogers. It is not the time or the place for us to enter on this warmly controverted subject, and we have noticed the work only on account of its bearing on the subject of insanity, and as forming a part of its literature.—Am. Journal of Insanity, published by the Superintendent of the New York Lunatic Asylum, July, 1850. So far as the leading controversy, in regard to the rival systems of prison discipline, is concerned, it seems to us to cover the entire ground with singular ability.—Princeton Review. ? A few copies of this pamphlet are still on hand, and may be had on application to the publishers, corner of Fifth and Minor streets, or to any member of the Acting Committee. OFFICERS FOR 1852-3. President—James J. Barclay. Vice-Presidents—Townsend Sharpless, Charles B. Trego. Treasurer—Edward Yarnall. Secretaries and Committee of Correspondence— Counsellors. Acting Committee.
? Quarterly Meeting of the Society, 2nd second day (Monday) of January, April, July and October. Inspectors of the State Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Warden—John S. Halloway. Resident Physician—D. W. Lassiter, M. D. Moral Instructor—Thomas Larcombe. Clerk—William Marriott. Teacher—George Neff. Visiting Committee of the Eastern Penitentiary.
Inspectors and Officers of the Philadelphia County Prison. President.—Jesse R. Burden, M. D., Treasurer.—T. C. Bunting. M. D., Secretary.—E. A. Penniman,
Superintendent.—Anthony Freed. Deputy Superintendents.—William B. Perkins, John Mirkil. Clerk.—Wm. J. Crans. Matron.—E. McDaniel. Physician.—Dr. J. C. Wall. Moral Instructor.—Rev. Wm. Alexander. Assistant Keepers—
Visiting Committee on the County Prison.
Return to top. Transcribers’ Notes. The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. The beginning of the third page of the cover was marked with: (Continued from second page of cover.). The following table shows changes made by the transcriber. Page# refers to the number of the printed page. Page ii is the inside front cover. Page 58 is the eighth page in this issue which was numbered 58 (for the year). Page 70 is the twentieth page in this issue which was numbered 70, and so on. Page iv is the outside back cover.
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