to any one in applying restoratives to the criminal, either while the punitive action continues, or after it has spent its force. It is an easy thing to make a man who has suffered the penalty of the law vindictive by scorn and neglect.

I believe it is possible, and hence the duty of the State, so far as it regards the great majority of those who have become criminals through ignorance, intemperance, misery, or passion, to influence them to stand firm to their good resolutions made in their bitter prison experience. And yet, while they do not properly belong to the crime-class of professional law-breakers, still suspicion, temptation, repugnance, and antagonism meet them on every side, on their exit from prison. Hence safety to the State, political economy, moral healthfulness, the support which the strong owe the weak, and the principles of the Golden Rule, all combine to make it the bounden duty of the State to round out and complete her prison systems with judicious, definite provisions for the care of discharged prisoners.

So much for the principles upon which the necessity of extending some form of aid is grounded.

How shall it be done?

First, By the State providing some industrial employment at which the discharged prisoner could work for his keeping, and secure a small amount over and above, for his own starting capital, until he could be properly re-absorbed into the ranks of society. These industrial homes would not demand much capital: they might be connected with the prison management, or located far away from it. The Wakefield Prison, in England, has such a place of industry connected with it; and none discharged from this prison, where there are between six hundred and eight hundred prisoners, need complain or excuse himself for want of work. Two similar industrial homes have been started in the United States.

Second, The State could justly help discharged prisoners through agents appointed definitively for that purpose. Let such agents be clothed with certain discretionary powers of action. Let their work extend to penitentiaries, jails, and places of detention, where definite-time sentences are being served. Let them learn something about the discharged who are friendless, their capacity for and their adaptability to certain kinds of labor, and then strive to secure employment, and encourage them, when employed, with a little friendly watchfulness. This plan places a good and responsible man in the breach between him and the rigorous convention

alisms of the world. He struggles to be honest: disappointment, sickness, scorn, poverty, and homelessness drive the poor discharged prisoner to the utmost limits of endurance. His good resolution fails. The lion of antagonism rises in his breast. He breaks the law when perhaps crazed through drink to drown his misfortunes, and prison-bars enclose him again. The State pays for his arrest; the State pays for his conviction and penal control: what has she paid for his industrial, moral, or social healthfulness when liberated, unless upon an appropriation of funds from the State, sufficient not to make the efforts of the agents a mere empty name?

Third, Voluntary prison societies have been mostly the avenues of aid to the discharged in the United States. Of these in our broad country there are but twelve or fifteen, and many of these receive no aid from the State treasury. They are chiefly private benefactions. They have done much good. Prominent among these societies are one in New York, the two societies of Pennsylvania, one in the east end of the State, and the other west at Pittsburg, the Maryland Society at Baltimore, and the Boston Society. They all do what they can, and stand as conclusive evidence as to what the State might do, were she to set to work in earnest and organized effort to redeem her fallen wards to honesty and industry. The sympathy of a few good men who make up these voluntary associations should be supplemented, or it will wear itself out in effort. The few dollars secured from overwork by some few prisoners will soon be spent when no work can be found, and no friend stands to advise how they may keep out of prison.

DEBATE ON PRISON DISCIPLINE.

PROFESSOR WAYLAND. - I want to say a single word about the treatment of discharged prisoners. If one object of imprisonment is moral reform, is it wise or humane to turn a discharged convict upon the world without a single judicious friend, without money, and with a taint upon his name, which will, in most cases, prevent him from obtaining employment? Is it strange, that under these circumstances he drifts once more into the society of his old associates in crime, - always ready to welcome him to their ranks, -forgets his good resolutions, yields to the first temptation, and

enters again upon a career of wrong-doing? How shall he be saved from these contaminating influences? Clearly by being surrounded, on his release from prison, by healthful moral associations. He must be encouraged by sympathy, and provided with some kind of honest employment. This is the work of a Prisoners' Aid Association.

But with what funds shall such an association carry on its beneficent work? It would seem that the State has a duty here. The State owes it to the discharged convict, that he shall commence his new life under circumstances favorable to his reformation; and owes it to society, that he shall not be exposed at once, and unaided, to the strongest possible temptation to renew his career of crime. If, therefore, benevolently disposed citizens are willing to give their time and attention to the work of guiding the discharged prisoner into the paths of virtue and honest industry, it would seem only reasonable that the State should provide them with the means for accomplishing their humane designs. Wherever this policy has been faithfully and intelligently pursued, the results have been most satisfactory.

MR. ELIZUR WRIGHT (of Boston) remarked that he had never had an opportunity to look critically into the business of caring for criminals; but a good many released convicts had come to him as beggars, and, in almost every instance in which he had felt obliged to give them something, he found out afterwards that it was money wasted. That had set him to thinking whether the State could not furnish prisoners with piece-work, and credit them with their earnings after paying expenses. The State might invest this money in such a way that the prisoner could not "send it up the spout" as soon as he came out. If his term was long, it might be invested in a homestead for him. Many States were possessed of large amounts of land, which might be disposed of in this way to prisoners. Was it right, when the State took the liberty of a man, also to take his labor, and either give it to the contractors, or absorb it into the State treasury? Should not a convict be provided with work, to enable him to reinstate himself in society when he got out? or should not his earnings be given to his family, for their support while he was in prison? Then you appeal to the conscience of the man, that you are doing him justice; and justice is the most that we can give. Let the State, which wishes to secure the right of property, recognize the right of the convict to his labor and property.

MR. F. B. SANBORN asked for information concerning the proposed plan of district prisons in Ohio.

DR. BYERS. The last General Assembly preceding the present one authorized the Board of State Charities to investigate and report on the prison system. The Board incorporated a recommendation of the district prison system in its report; but a new legislature came in, and so the matter failed to come up for action. On the ground of economy, the former legislature declined to act upon it.

MR. SANBORN.-Experience in Massachusetts leads to the opinion that there should be no intermingling in the same prison, of persons detained to await trial, and those already convicted.

DR. BYERS.—The jail should be strictly a house of detention for persons awaiting trial; and the district prisons should be used for the confinement of those sentenced for crime.

DR. BYERS thought the district prisons should be used for persons undergoing sentence, whether for an hour, a day, or a year. The organization of a system of district workhouses, under the control of the State, had been recommended by the Board of State Charities to the legislature of the State. Such prisons would meet an urgent demand, felt throughout the State, in rural districts as well as in cities and larger towns. The workhouse seemed to be the only solution to the vexed questions as to "tramps" and other idle, vagrant, and vicious classes. It was a demand of humanity as well as of justice, that these classes should be brought under restraint. At present we have nothing for this but county jails and city station-houses. It is seldom that the latter are employed for any thing beyond mere temporary detention. The jail can be used for little more than this, a little more temporary detention after passing beyond the station-house. This of course brings no permanent relief, but rather, as our Ohio jails are managed, aggravates the very evils from which we seek relief. Besides forcing men into idleness and vicious associations, corrupting and confirming bad habits, the keeping of such men in jails is quite expensive. In 1876 Ohio paid over $100,000 in "jail-fees" orboarding-bills" to county sheriffs. One-half, probably twothirds, of this sum was expended upon a class of persons to whom the jail is an absolute luxury. In this connection, Dr. Byers alluded to the plan of jail building adopted by the Board of State Charities of Ohio, for jails now being built in that State, which provides for the complete separation of jail prisoners by confining them in cells.

A question was asked, How the prisoners obtained exercise under this system?

Dr. Byers replied, that, although they had succeeded in getting the prisons properly constructed, they had not yet succeeded in getting the judges of courts to make rules requiring sheriffs to maintain separation, and sheriffs would not otherwise do it. Consequently thus far they had not been able to determine the question of needful exercise. It could be said, however, that ordinarily the cells were not less than seven by nine feet, and that close confinement in these, with good light and ventilation, would probably not seriously impair health. If more exercise were needed, prisoners could be taken, one at a time, through the middle corridor, into the entry or hall of the jail, without possibly seeing or being seen by other prisoners.

MRS. DALL (of Boston), after commending Mr. Brockway's management of the prison at Elmira in high terms of praise, said, "It was not quite apparent from his paper that these prison grades are changeable. Mr. Brockway generally puts a new prisoner in the middle grade, and he is made to understand that he can rise or fall by his own acts. While I was there, a prisoner came in who was put into the middle grade. He had high expectations of going into the upper grade, because he was dressed like a gentleman; but, the day after he got there, he was guilty of obscene language, and instantly removed to the lower grade, his hair was cut still shorter, and his clothes were changed. He broke down completely, and shed tears. Mr. Brockway's words were few, but I think they made an impression upon him; he became quiet, and there was not a sob or tear after that. Some prisoners have a strong desire to reform, but cannot because they were never taught to do any thing with a strong determination. One of these men complained that he could not work with the kind of men around him: so Mr. Brockway put him in a cell by himself, where he did much better work. He did not want to go out of the cell; he said the presence of the other men distracted his attention from his work. I said to him, he must get rid of that feeling. It seemed to be a new idea to him, that he was a human being like myself, and could, by persistent effort, overcome these difficulties; and when I left he was in a fair way of improvement."

MRS. WARDNER thought it an abuse to appoint male wardens for female prison departments, and expressed a hope that in all prisons, female wardens might be given charge of the female convicts.