: The journal of prison discipline and philanthropy (Vol. XV No. I January 1860) by Philadelphia Society For Alleviating The Miseries Of Public Prisons - Charities Periodicals; Prisons Periodicals

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OF NO. 1.

BRIEF NOTICES. Escapes and Pardons 40 Early Crime 43 Compromising with Rogues 45 Consumption of Intoxicating Drinks 46 Prisons and Prisoners in South Carolina ib. Annual Census of the Philadelphia County Prison 47 A Quarter's Police Work in New York ib. Alabama State Prison ib. New York Prison Association 48 Deliberate Murder by a Boy under Nine Years of age ib. Distribution of Labor in Paris ib. New Jersey State Prison ib.

JOURNAL

OF

PRISON DISCIPLINE.

We hear with unfeigned pleasure of any improvement in the construction of city and county gaols. Convinced as we have been for many years, and by testimony from innumerable sources, that in most of them we shall find a fruitful soil for the production and growth of criminal purposes and habits, we can conceive of few objects of municipal oversight which demand earlier or closer attention. What the gaol does to make a bad man worse, the penitentiary cannot easily undo. If a thief or burglar or counterfeiter, while waiting for trial or sentence, serves a few weeks' or months' apprenticeship to one or more adepts in those branches in a gaol, he is a very unpromising subject of penitentiary discipline. He is, perhaps, rather braced against any influences which may be employed to change his course of life, and buoyed up with the anticipation of pursuing his criminal projects under more favorable circumstances, and with greater skill and success, upon the termination of his sentence.

So deep are our convictions of the immeasurable evils inflicted on the community by bad gaols, that we accept an attempt to improve them, in any respect, as a token of good. If a cell that was dirty yesterday is clean to-day--if the sexes are separated--if, instead of allowing prisoners to herd together day and night, they are separated by night--if for darkness, dampness and a pestilential atmosphere, the light and air have free access--if, in a word, there is some decent respect shown to the species represented in these suspected and perhaps fallen, degraded, and certainly discreditable specimens of it--we take courage.

The following description of the gaol, illustrated as it is by the accompanying engravings, will give our readers the means of judging for themselves of the design and character of the new edifice:

The jail stands in close proximity to the penitentiary, and comprises a centre building, and north and south wings.

There is a block of cells in each of the two wings, 15 cells in length, 2 in width, and 5 stories in height, making 300 cells in the two wings, for the confinement of prisoners.

These two wings are on what is known as the "Auburn plan," being a prison within a prison. The cells are surrounded by corridors formed between the block of cells and the exterior walls.

The cells are 8 feet by 11 feet, and about 10 feet high, they are built of bricks, with segment and arched ceilings, and brick floors; each cell has an iron grated door and window opening into the corridors. The corridors are 13 feet wide, and have floors of hard flag stone on a level with the floors of the first story cells, they are open from this floor to the top of the upper story cells.

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