Humanity and humanitarianism : with special reference to the prison systems of Great Britain and the United States, the question of criminal lunacy, and capital punishment / by William Tallack.

  • Tallack, William, 1831-1908.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Humanity and humanitarianism : with special reference to the prison systems of Great Britain and the United States, the question of criminal lunacy, and capital punishment / by William Tallack. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    12/36 (page 10)
    FORMER EFFICIENT PRISON SYSTEM OF PENNSYLVANIA. At the end of the last century when the common-sense policy of Penn was more thoroughly dominant in Pennsylvania than has since been the case, criminals were much more effec- tively repressed and far more certainly reformed, than has sub- sequently been done. The system then pursued in that State was characterised by certainty of conviction, deterrence, resti- tution, and eminent success as to reformatory results. Prisoners were required to work out in gaol all the costs of their prose- cution and maintenance. If refractory, they were secluded in solitary cells, usually for forty-eight hours, without labour ; but the time and cost thus involved was added to the amount remaining to be worked off. The strictest order, cleanliness, c[uiet, and early rising were enforced, and these regulations in themselves constituted a very severe but wholesome punishment to persons previously lazy, dirty, irregular, noisy, and licentious. The food was very coarse and cheap, but sufi&cient, consisting of a supply ad libitum, for breakfast and supper, of mush, or boiled Indian corn. The dinner consisted of half a pound of bread and a pint of potatoes, three days a week ; on the other days mush and potatoes, with the addition, on Sundays, of one pound of good meat, the only day on which animal food was permitted. Thus there was no danger of starvation or cruelty, but certainly no pampering in the matter of diet. No intoxicating drinks were permitted, but only a beverage of molasses and watQr. All the prison clothing was manufactured by the inmates. The chief industries were carpentering, stone-cutting, weaving, shoe-making, tailoring, nail-making, spinning, preparing logwood, plaster of paris, cotton, flax, and hemp. The several classes of prisoners, in distinct parts of the premises, included those sentenced for short periods and also those confined for life depreciation of real education, viz. religious and industrial, in addition to intel- lectual. But Prussians generally (and perhaps Americans) have overvalued mere intellect. Yet intellect alone is a poor moraliser. An English M.P., in visiting recently a large Prussian prison, asked the governor if there were many ixncducated inmates there. We have not one, was the reply, unable to read and write, whilst many of the prisoners are highly educated, knowing for example three or four languages.