five minutes once a week. This as before would of course give him altogether five minutes of company every day.

Perhaps it may be designed that these visits should be much like those described in the third report of the inspectors of prisons, for the home district in England. They state, that they have frequently seen a governor visit 500 prisoners in separate cells in the course of a very few hours; and thus describe the manner in which visits are made by the governor and by the surgeon. "An officer precedes them in their rounds, and has already opened two or three cells in advance, and the governor or surgeon passes on from one cell to another almost as soon as an officer passes down a line of troops, stopping whenever a case requires further inquiry or communication."

Now this species of formal review is highly useful no doubt, and ought to be continued; but it does not amount to much social intercourse, nor detract much time from the loneliness of twenty-four hours of unmitigated solitude.

For the rest of his visits, the prisoner must rely on the voluntary benevolence of friends and strangers. From the same letter we learn, that each prisoner exercises, of course alone, an hour every day in one of a series of courts, some of which are adorned with flowers, and refreshed with fountains. As there is a considerable part of the year in our climate when this exercise could not be taken more than eight hours in a day, it would be requisite to have one such court

or garden for every eight convicts, that is, more than sixty for 500 prisoners and nearly forty in Charlestown.

The Commissions of the Chamber of Deputies condemn the unnecessary rigor shown in Pennsylvania, and consider the relaxations they propose as essential to the success of their system. How much aid they expect from benevolent societies and individuals does not appear. Nor is it important for us to inquire; for in this as in many other particulars, that which may be very practicable in France, may be out of the question in America.

The legal and social institutions and habits of England resemble our own much more than those of the rest of Europe do, and we know much more about them. In that country also, there have been far more extensive and varied observations on this subject, than in any of the continental nations. The experience of their great national establishments and its results, needs only to be briefly stated, in order to show how far the English system resembles that of solitary labor as administered here, and how far, such as it is, it has been successful there, or might be appropriate in America.

The first national penitentiary was built at Millbank, near London. It was opened, partially, to receive women in 1816, and for men in 1817, and completed in 1822. Its inmates consisted of those convicts who, having been sentenced to transportation, had their punishment transmuted for confinement in this prison by warrant of a Secretary of State. In consequence of a

contagious disease which broke out in this prison in the winter of 1823, ascribed by some to a reduction in the quantity and quality of food, which had been made to meet the popular complaint that convicts in the prison lived better than honest laborers without, the prisoners were all removed and the prison remained closed till 1824; since which time it has been constantly occupied. The prisoners were originally divided into two classes, in each of which it was intended that they should pass half the time of their confinement. Those in the first class, after coming out to wash, eight at a time, in the morning, pursued their several occupations in their cells, till it was the turn of their ward to work at the water-machine or at the corn-mills. The prisoners of each ward, thirtytwo in number, worked four times a day in company at these machines for half an hour each time in summer, walking afterwards in their own airing-yard for a quarter of an hour, and then returning to their cells. They walked two and two, and were allowed to converse with their companions, provided the conversation were not carried on in a loud voice.

The arrangements made for the schools, and calculated particularly for the first class of prisoners, were as follows. The schools were held on two evenings in every week, the number of pupils in each school being sixteen, and the school lasting about an hour and a half.

The convicts belonging to this class labored separately in their cells. To what good end it is difficult

to imagine, since they were allowed to converse, unheard by the officers, every day during their walks.

Convicts of the second class worked several together in larger cells by day, but were kept separate at night; and they walked more in their court yards, and worked less at the machines and mills than those of the first class.*

In the year 1832, this second class was abolished, and thenceforth every prisoner worked alone in his cell; and in 1837, on the appointment of a new governor, conversation in the yards was prohibited and various other restrictive measures adopted, all designed to carry out as far as possible the principle, as it was called, of non-intercourse.

As early as the 11th of May, 1839, the deaths and cases of insanity had become so frequent and alarming, that a distinguished physician was called in to visit the prison twice a week for six months; and in February, 1840, the eminent Dr. William Baly was appointed with the consent of the Secretary of State to visit the prison twice at least in every week for the space of twelve months, in order, "that the condition and health of the prisoners and the physical effects of the discipline should be narrowly watched by a competent medical man, in conjunction with the resident surgeon."

Dr. Baly, accepted the appointment, and made his

* Holford on Millbank, p. 68, &c.

report in May, 1841. Considering the remarks made on this report by the superintending committee, and the character of its author, it is greatly to be regretted that the British government has not seen fit to publish it.

The inspectors of the home district express their opinion, that this impaired state of health must be attributed to some other cause than the increased strictness of the separation and discipline, which had then recently taken place. But the remedies prescribed by Dr. Baly, and the success of those remedies leave no doubt on this subject. The official reports of the superintending committee of the Millbank penitentiary for the years 1841 and 1842, will make this apparent.

[Extracts from the Millbank Report for 1841.]

"Great alterations have been made in the discipline of the institution. In consequence of a distressing increase in the number of insane prisoners, the committee, under the sanction of Dr. Baly's report, which will afterwards be noticed, came to the resolution, that it would be unsafe to continue a strict system of separation for the long periods, to which the ordinary sentences of prisoners in the penitentiary extend. They therefore proposed that the system should be relaxed with regard to all classes of prisoners, except two, viz., military prisoners, (whose sentences in general are extremely short,) and persons convicted of unnatural offences; and that, as to all other prisoners, the prohibition of intercourse should be limited to the first three months after their admission, and that upon the expiration of that period, they should be placed under a system of modified intercourse, consisting of permission to converse during the hours of exercise, with two or more fellow prisoners; the privilege to be suspended for miscon