cepting in a single instance, in which a great cloth manufactory at Sieradz, had been converted into a prison, on the Auburn system for 166 prisoners, where they were entirely separated by night, but labored together during the day. Prisons in which each individual has a separate cell, whether administered under the Auburn or Pennsylvania system, he calls cellular prisons, and contrasts them with those where prisoners live in common. The Count states, that only two cases of insanity had occurred in the house of detention at Warsaw, during the ten years since its establishment, and mentions facts, which show that these cannot be ascribed to its system of discipline; but as we are not informed what length of time is usually occupied by the examination, during which alone the prisoner is separately confined, it is impossible to form any judgment of the weight or bearing of this statement. The French report of the proceedings at Frankfort contains Count Skarbek's speech, in which are the following passages. They are very literally translated, even the punctuation being preserved. "The house of detention at Warsaw contains 166 cells and 20 halls of from 12 to 14 beds for those prisoners whose examination is closed; and the three other houses of detention in the Provinces only contain cells proportioned in number to the wants of their localities, and have only two common halls designed for smugglers and those condemned to less than three months' imprisonment, who are employed in the internal service of the house." "This brief statement of what has been done hitherto for Penitentiary reform in the Kingdom of Poland, cannot yet promise great results with respect to the influence of the system upon the morals of the people, for such results can only be obtained when the system shall have been developed in all its parts and fully put in operation throughout the whole country. Yet what I can affirm, is this: 1. That the state of health, in the cellular prisons, is far more satisfactory than in the prisons in common. The past year, in which Typhus fever decimated the prisoners in these last prisons, shows that the cellular system secures the inmates against contagious diseases; for in the establishments of this kind, even in that which is constituted according to the Auburn system, that dreadful disease has scarcely seized a victim; and while the mortality in them remained, as in ordinary years, at 3 per cent., it exceeded 10 per cent. in the prisons in common.* * How greatly readers are liable to be misled by an abstract not carefully made, may be learned by comparing with the above an article, which appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser of July 27, 1847. It is headed thus: 64 PRESENT STATE OF PRISON DISCIPLINE IN EUROPE. "The communications, made to the Penitentiary Congress at Frankfort, in September last, from the different countries of Europe, furnish an authentic account of the present state of Prison Discipline there, and particularly of the extent to which the Pennsylvania or Separate System has been adopted. It may not be uninteresting to present some facts which have been gleaned from these communications." "Separate System Prisons in Europe.” Its account of the prisons of Poland is in the following words: "In Poland, the Separate System has been for a long time in successful operation. A Prison on this system was built at Warsaw in 1835, which contains one hundred and sixty-six cells. In 1843 an appropriation was made to build three other prisons on the same system. Count Skarbek, a Councellor of State in Warsaw, and much devoted to the cause of Prison Discipline, stated at the Penitentiary Congress as follows: (1) The health of the Separate Prisons in Poland was more satisfactory than that of the Congregate'; and, (2) During the ten years since the occupation of the Prison at Warsaw, there have been only two cases of mental alienation, one of which declared itself the morning after the In this State any person accused and not able to procure the bail required for his release, is committed to jail for the purpose of securing his appearance at his trial, and for this purpose alone; and any restraint whatsoever imposed on him, which is not necessary for this purpose, or for preserving good order in the prison, would be deemed a violation of his rights, nor can he be subjected by compulsion to labor or to idleness, to solitude or to society, any further than is necessary for the accomplishment of these objects. The same may be said of witnesses in criminal cases, who, if there is reason to believe that they will not appear to give evidence on the trial of the accused, may be confined, unless they can give security for their appearance. It is for this purpose alone that they are confined, and not as asserted by a recent French writer, with the fantastic design of securing the integrity of their testimony, for which it would indeed be a singular expedient. But little as is generally known here about the arrest, and the other was caused by too hasty treatment of the plique (Plica Polonica); but the latter patient has been completely cured." The last sentence is an exact translation of the Count's words as contained in the French Report. But it will be seen that nothing is said of the 20 halls containing from 12 to 14 beds each, in all from 240 to 280, which are mentioned in the first passage above cited, in immediate connection with the 166 cells, without a comma between them; and that the second passage is transmuted into a singular phrase, which is marked as a quotation. * "On emprisonne préventivement les témoins en Amérique, pour s'assurer de la fidélité de leurs dépositions. On use de singuliers expédients contre la liberté dans ces pays de liberté." Moreau-Christophe, sur la projet de loi. p. 86. discipline of prisons in most parts of the continent of Europe, much information at least with regard to opinion in France, may be derived from the proceedings in the chamber of deputies. The sentiments of a large number of the members on this subject are perhaps best exhibited in a report, made in 1840, by Mr. De Tocqueville, on behalf of a commission of the chamber, and in another report, made by the same distinguished statesman, on behalf of a similar commission in 1843. These reports, however, have not yet been definitively acted upon by the chamber of deputies. They set forth at length the reasons of the commissions for abandoning the system of prison discipline then existing there, which involves the confinement of convicts in common, without effectual restraint by day or by night. To these it is unnecessary to refer, as no doubt exists here on that subject, and any discussion of it has long been entirely obsolete; so that no one would now think of instituting any comparison at all between our two systems or either of them and prisons in common. The reports set forth, also, the reasons of the commissions for preferring solitary to social labor. These last reasons, or such of the most prominent among them as have not already been noticed, may require a few remarks. The commissions admit in the outset that the system of solitude by night, with labor in common but in silence during the day, precludes the grosser immoralities and prevents in part the moral contamina tion of the existing prisons; and that it makes labor more productive and is less expensive to the public than the system of labor in solitude. The severity and frequency of punishments requisite in the opinion of the commissions for administering the system of social labor, are much dwelt on, and it is asserted that "in all the American prisons on this system a violation of the rule of silence is punished by a certain number of lashes; and that the only American prison, where the lash was not used in 1831, has since adopted it." To all Americans the incorrectness of these statements is well known. The commissions allege that silence cannot be perfectly maintained; and that though it may be preserved to such a degree, as to prevent the grosser corruptions, yet the prisoners will still be able to make known to each other their former history and their future plans; and that at any rate, the rule of silence will be so often violated, as to lose that power of repressing crime, which seems to them to be the chief merit of the system. Undoubtedly, a few stolen words are sometimes exchanged in the prison, but it is not believed here, that any sustained conversation, or any detailed communication of former adventures or of conspiracies for the future, can take place without detection. Nor is it, perhaps, possible to prevent all' communication whatever between prisoners in any other manner, than by placing each of them in a solitary building under a separate roof. The sole object of prohibiting conversation in our prison is to |