the management of the "Eastern Penitentiary," for sympathy manifested in the efforts of its committees to improve the prisoners; and they felt how much was due to the encouraging concurrence of the late Warden, John S. Halloway; and, hence the death of that good man and valuable officer was doubly regretted by the members of this Society.

An event has occurred, thanks to the discriminating care of the Inspectors of the Eastern Penitentiary, which consoles for the official loss of Mr. Halloway, by creating an assured belief that the place which he occupied is to be fully supplied.

The Society learns, with the highest gratification, that one of its Secretaries, Edward Townsend, M. D., has been elected Warden of the Eastern Penitentiary, and has already entered upon an efficient discharge of the important duties of that office.

Satisfied of the abilities of Dr. Townsend to meet all the demands of his new position, aware of his purity of purpose and his judicious zeal for the cause of humanity, and his ruling sense of justice, believing that while he is set to govern others, he has full “rule over his own spirit," and can thus the more readily control the excitable elements that are submitted to his direction; with a comprehension of all this, the Society felicitates the Board of Inspectors of the Eastern Penitentiary upon the success of its efforts to procure the services of a competent Warden, and upon the selection of a man whose self-respect precluded the possibility of his seeking the office, while his sense of duty to his fellow man leads him to accept it against his pecu

niazy interest, and especially against a natural desire for ease and retirement, which long application to professional duties fully warrants.

Nor can the Society refrain from expressing its high gratification that one of its own members has been invited, without solicitation on his part, to a place of so much consequence to the cause of philanthropy, and that now the best system of Prison Discipline in the world is likely to have its best administration.

With this feeling on the part of the members of the Society, it is

Resolved, That this Society recognize the discriminating judgment and foresight manifested by the Board of Inspectors of the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania in their recent election of a Warden for that institution.

Resolved, That this Society offers its hearty thanks to Edward Townsend, a laboring member and faithful officer of this Society, for accepting the unsought position of Warden of the Eastern Penitentiary, to which he brings a zeal according to knowledge, and a judgment matured by a connection of many years with the moral interests of the inmates of the place, and a command of self that will insure affectionate respect and ready and willing obedience from those committed to his care, and a gentle humanity that, accompanied by a governing sense of right, will secure improvement without neglecting discipline.

Resolved, That in tendering to Dr. Edward Townsend the congratulations of the Society, which seem to be those of the whole community, on his recent appoint

ment as Warden of the Eastern Penitentiary, and offering him thanks for his acceptance of the office, he is assured of the constant sympathy of the members of the Society, and his hands shall be strengthened by the prayers of those who know his worth and appreciate his abilities.

The report was accepted and the resolutions unanimously adopted.

WHAT IS YET TO BE DONE.

We see that movements are being made in various parts of the State to call a convention for the revision. of the Constitution. Undoubtedly there is a necessity for such a measure. The Constitution that preceded that under which we now live, was a noble specimen of statesmanship, and the affairs of the Commonwealth seemed to have been prosperous under it. Whether it was better to alter a fundamental law, founded on the great principles of freedom, to suit a change of certain habits, or to adapt the habit and laws of the State to a well digested and carefully prepared Constitution, it is not in our place to discuss. The former Constitution having been changed, we have thence both precedent and necessity for amendment. We are concerned chiefly for the Judiciary, and especially for the lower branch of the Judiciary. We desire to see, especially in this city, a Police Magistracy that, with a proper knowledge of the law and a full supply of common sense, may

be

able to deal with accused persons upon grounds of absolute justice, without cause of apprehension that their decisions will influence their own income, or that the amount of their business is not increased by their own efforts to make cases, and their income augmented by hasty or tardy settlement of those cases. We need a Magistracy with extended powers, Aldermen who may deal summarily with cases of a limited importance, and thus serve the cause of justice, save time to the offender and money to the city. We unhesitatingly believe that one-half of all the "costs" which the city pays for the cause of justice might be saved by such a course. The habit of litigation among those who now rush, if not unadvisedly, at least foolishly to the Alderman's office, would be arrested. The Courts would not be hurried with small prison cases, and troublesome people would learn to keep their troubles to themselves. The man that had beaten his wife, would not, while she was suf fering from the bruises he inflicted on her, rush to the Alderman to get her committed to prison for assault and battery, and spend thus on a writ the amount of money which he had saved from his debauch, and ought to have given to her for the purchase of bread.

We repeat here what we have often said, that it is not to the Magistrate that is referable the wrong, but to the system; or if to the Magistrate, then still primarily to the system that hinders in some wards a proper person from occupying an office which will not afford a good living by proper means.

But another scheme of real benevolence is occupying public attention. It is one that a few years since this

Journal presented with approval, and showed its practicability and its great utility in a direction which other reformatory institutions had not operated in the State. We mean School Ships (ships, not houses) of Refuge. At a time when the old apprenticeship custom has fallen into disuse, and the lads that ought to be apprentices, have in consequence of that disuse fallen into idle and vicious habits, into the House of Refuge or the County Prison, we need to have multiplied places of restraint and means of enforcing improvement. And the lack of seamen of which our merchants complain, and for which commerce languishes, is another argument for the Ship School. Let us have employment for the young men― free or enforced-but certainly employment.

NECROLOGY.

SAMUEL CALEY.

We have too many members who have passed the most active stage of life to hope to close our report of the year's experience of the Society without finding it necessary to record the death of some of our number. We are passing away, and those of us who live for more than three score years and ten, have a duty to mention, their own losses, in the death of those who have labored with them, and to see that virtue in the living does not lack a stimulant by the neglect of the good labors of the departed.