The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.

REPORT.

CHAPTER I.

THE close of another year brings with it the duty of accounting for the use of the employed time, and for the exercise of the responsibilities devolved. If wrong still exists in the path which is prescribed for service, for how much of that wrong are we accountable? If any good has been secured, how much commendation. may we receive for the achievement? If we have failed to advance; to what do we owe the failure? If we have made progress in the good work, what has removed the impediment that once hindered our advance?

It is a wise and a wholesome thought to make it a duty to give periodical reports upon what has been done. That seems the best way to make known what has not been done. The sense of the duty of reporting, creates a sense of the importance of investigating -that there may be a knowledge of what has been done.

Where the whole round of duties seems in each year so like what was prescribed and done in a previous

year, it may be thought difficult to give interest to any report which may be so very much like its predecessors, save only in dates—and perhaps in a few names.

But the change of dates produces change of action, and as we reach the public mind and impress it favorably with our plans and motives of action, we find new duties, and consequently an enlarged responsibility.

In one view our Society has made little advance in the year now drawing to a close. We still seem dealing with some abstract questions of social science, and occupying ourselves at our meetings with reports upon some action of committees, and the entertainment of subjects propounded for investigation, or for recommendation to the authorities of the State.

In another view, the Society shows itself active in the consideration and development of principles that lie at the root of prison discipline; and, with what a great statesman has called a "masterly inactivity," it awaits the action of the Commission of Public Charities, so that it may place itself in perfect accord with that body in establishing plans of prison discipline, which if new to the State authorities, have been considered in abstract by the Society.

ACTING COMMITTEE.

The meetings of the Acting Committee have been regularly held during the year. The excessive heat drove from the city, in July and August, many of our

members, and the regular assembly felt the loss of their number and of their advice. But the return of cool weather insured the presence of our active members, and gives encouragement to those who look forward to additional benefits to result from our labors.

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS.

Early in the year the Society was invited to have itself represented in a Congress to be held in London, in July, at which it was hoped that nearly all Christendom would have a representation.

A knowledge of the wants of the world in the way of Prison administration, led this Society to believe that the International Congress would be productive of great good. And the Society seemed unwilling that the deliberations of such an assembly should be without the presentation of experience which nearly a hundred years of active existence had secured to it. Nor was the Society willing to be without the credit which might result from labors so profitable as it was hoped those of the Congress would prove.

So it was resolved that the Society should be represented in the London International Congress, and Joseph R. Chandler, one of the Vice Presidents, was elected a delegate, bearing with him the opinions and views of the Society, as well as the authority by which he was to represent those views.

The whole proceedings of that Congress, with the

papers presented by its members, abstracts of arguments upon questions at issue, will appear next Spring, in a large volume. Meantime the delegate from this Society, who had it in charge to visit various penal and reformatory institutions, in Great Britain and on the Continent, made report to the Society in October last, of his labors in the Congress, and his inspection of various institutions.

The Report of the Delegate was received, and for the information of the members five hundred copies were printed and circulated, and one thousand were printed to correspond with the Journal, and embodied in this number, under the title of "An Appendix,” to which the readers are referred.

It will be seen by statements in this Appendix, that every part of Europe is awake to the importance of the great question of prison discipline-and, as connected with that, and preceding it in time, and exceeding it in importance, the plans and discipline of reformatories are considered, and the attempts at execution watched with great anxiety, and criticised with an earnestness that shows how much higher prevention is estimated than is cure.

It will be seen also that in England and on the Continent of Europe, the privileged classes seem to regard it as a privilege to be called to assist in such a work as prison improvement. Almost every branch of the English aristocracy was represented in the Congress; and reports of various institutions show how efficient is the zeal of the nobility in promoting the works of philanthropy.

One other thing was observable and most encouraging, not only were the nobility conspicuous in societies for promoting virtue and comfort among the vicious and the unfortunate, but they, and the wealthy of all classes, were profuse in their contributions to the funds necessary to the good work. Astonishment was

expressed by many who had not before had an opportunity of judging of such matters, that such immense sums in the aggregate, and in many cases individually large, were so easily raised upon propositions for founding asylums, reformatories and other institutions to assist in making human beings better and happier, or saving them from the contagion of vice, before they had obtained the age and judgment necessary to preserve themselves from the danger of evil associa

tions.

Countenance, patronage then, and money, are to be had in England, where there is an object that appeals, with apparent justice, for such contributions. And while the immense number of societies, refuges, schools and associations for good that reported to the London Congress for examination, shows how copiously money had been poured out for their establishment and maintenance, the Congress itself was a proof, a wonderful proof of the liberality excited for its proper support, which must have required a princely sum.