Annual Report of the Inspectors, Volume 14

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Page 22 - I made the remark that the department was able to manage and direct the system to whatever limits it might be able to grow. In spite of the fact that much of my time and effort has been diverted from the specific work...
Page 12 - ... mischievous, and the judges ask, What can be done with them? Until the legislature of Pennsylvania shall provide a suitable Asylum for the indigent deranged, (a measure which every motive of policy, of economy, and humanity, imperiously demands,) we must expect that such will be sent to the Penitentiary." " In a future age, it will scarcely be believed, that, in the nineteenth century, in a Christian land, in a state containing, throughout its extent, innumerable monuments of piety, of intelligence,...
Page 3 - Indulging in the use of ardent spirits, subjected to a prejudice, which bids defiance to any successful attempt to improve their physical or moral condition, from youth to manhood, sowing the seeds of disease in their constitutions, and at last becoming inmates of prisons.
Page 6 - ... bites of serpents and other venomous reptiles can be relieved by similar means. Ancient physicians, who attributed many diseases to the influence of evil spirits, fancied that harmonious sounds drove them away, more especially when accompanied by incantations ; and we find in Luther, ''that music is one of the most beautiful and glorious gifts of God, to which Satan is a bitter enemy.
Page 50 - ... in the free population. They have paid but little attention to the predisposing causes of insanity, who have not observed the influence of neglected, or rather, perverted moral training in early youth. Neglect of moral discipline gives to the passions and emotions of our nature an undue ascendency, allowing capricious and violent tempers to be formed, on which the exciting causes of mental derangement have a tenfold greater influence than on individuals whose feelings and desires act under the...
Page 24 - I stated my belief that by proper sanatory regulations the mortality could be reduced very greatly without the slightest encroachment on the principles of separation, and now, as regards the mental health, I repeat the same conviction with even greater confidence in its truth, and if possible, a more earnest desire to see the necessary measures put in immediate operation.
Page 60 - ... hundred volumes of German and French books for the use of foreign convicts, which it is hoped will contribute to the temporal and spiritual prosperity of that class of prisoners. The Library established by John Bacon, Esq., has also been increased ; and there are at this time about one thousand five hundred volumes in circulation, whose influence must impart intellectual and moral instruction to some extent.
Page 17 - I am confident, however, that without, in the slightest degree, encroaching on either the letter or the spirit of the discipline we employ, it is within the power of hygiene permanently to reduce our mortality to a standard even lower. To accomplish this desirable result, it is true, would require architectural changes that would involve considerable expense, and call for modifications in the discipline that were not deemed essential in the infancy of the system ; but when such momentous interests...
Page 49 - But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Page 5 - New cases of Insanity in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in each year, since 1836. " Now since it appears, that where the color is distinguished, the number of whites and the number of blacks becoming insane * " The system is called the solitary system by some who have written against it, and who have portrayed their objections in glowing colors. It is not a solitary system ; and therefore such objections, and whatever deductions have been made therefrom, are groundless. The prisoners are...

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