CHARITABLE AND PENAL INSTITUTIONS

55

In the United States, the blind, deaf and dumb, and imbecile are looked upon as citizens having a claim upon the State, and it is one always cheerfully acknowledged. In England they are regarded as paupers, who must be kept from starving by the poor-rates, but beyond that having no claim upon the government. In fact, Great Britain, to-day, is the only country in the civilized world where the State does not aid in the education of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and those without ordinary mental powers.* The proportion of the abnormal classes in America is much smaller than in Great Britain, so that fewer institutions are needed as compared with the population. Great Britain and Ireland, for example, have forty-six deaf-and-dumb asylums, all private, while the United States has sixty-nine. The latter are mostly public, however, and in them the whole cost of board, clothing, and education is in almost every case undertaken by the State.+

When we now turn to prison reforms, we shall see America again as an instructor. No one at all acquainted with history needs to be told of the criminal code of England and of the prison system, which continued there until a very recent date. Up to the reign of George I. there were sixty-seven offences that were punishable by

"The British tax-payer, alone among all civilized Christian men, enjoys immunity from taxation for the instruction of those who under the name of the 'abnormal classes,' those who without sight and without ordinary mental power, are the special care of even such a poor nation as Norway."-Dr. Buxton's "Notes on Progress."

The Nineteenth Century, Oct., 1884, p. 597; Report of U. S. Com. of Education, 1887-88. Besides these, the United States have thirtytwo public asylums for the blind and twenty-two for feeble-minded children. Idem.

death. Between his accession and the termination of the reign of George III., about one hundred and thirty-six were added to the number. Of the criminal statutes of Great Britain, Sir Samuel Romilly said: "I have examined the codes of all nations, and ours is the worst, and worthy of the anthropophagi." As for the prisons, they were what Macaulay called them, simply "hells on earth."

The first reform in the criminal code of English-speaking people began in Pennsylvania, having been ordered in the State Constitution of 1776, and this was followed by a penitentiary built at Philadelphia in 1786, through the influence of the Friends. The method of confinement in this institution is known as the Pennsylvania system. It consists of absolute solitary imprisonment, in which the convict is shut off from all human companionship. New York followed, in 1797, with a new penal code and a new penal system. At first, the solitary Pennsylvania plan was tried, but this was found to entail serious physical and mental evils upon the subjects. Finally, at Auburn prison there was introduced, in 1823, the system of solitary confinement at night, with congregated silent work by day. This is known as the Auburn system, and has been more generally adopted throughout the civilized world.*

In Great Britain, despite the labors of the noble Howard, Elizabeth Fry, and others, there was no real prison reform until after 1831. In that year a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to investigate the whole subject, and shortly afterwards it sent a representative, Mr. Crawford, across the Atlantic to examine the prisons of America, which just at that time had

"A Half Century with Juvenile Delinquents," by B. K. Peirce, D.D. (New York, 1869), p. 31.

*

• HOUSES OF REFUGE

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been highly praised by distinguished travellers from France. Upon his return, in 1834, Mr. Crawford made an able and exhaustive report, which attracted wide attention. The result was the introduction into England of the American prison system, upon both the Pennsylvania and the New York model.

But America has done more than to give model penitentiary systems to the Old World. One of the greatest evils of the former prisons consisted in the huddling together of all ages and classes—the young with the old, the child guilty of his first offence with the habitual criminal, grown gray in crime. In the removal of this moral leprosy New York led the way by establishing, in 1824, a House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents.† By the laws of the state magistrates were, and ever since have been, authorized to send to this reformatory institution all minors convicted of trivial offences, and even those guilty of felony if under sixteen years of age. There they are taught trades, are educated to habits of industry and thrift, learn that they have friends who care for their welfare, physical and spiritual, and the result has been that a large proportion of the inmates have been permanently reformed. In 1828, Pennsylvania followed the example of New York, and in the

"There can be little doubt," says a writer in the "Encyclopædia Britannica" (article "Prison Discipline "), "that this committee, like every one just then, was greatly struck by the superior method of prison discipline pursued in the United States. The best American prisons had recently been visited by two eminent Frenchmen, MM. Beaumont and De Tocqueville, who spoke of them in terms of the highest praise. It was with the object of appropriating what was best in the American system that Mr. Crawford was despatched across the Atlantic on a special mission of inquiry."

+ Edinburgh Review, 1855, p. 396.

*

next forty years over twenty similar institutions were established in the United States, which, in that time, gathered within their walls from forty to fifty thousand criminal or imperilled children. From America the system has spread to Europe, and is now almost universal. As the result of this kind of work, the commitments of female vagrants in the city of New York fell off from 5880 in 1860 to 2525 in 1885, although in that time the population nearly doubled. The commitments of young girls for petit larceny were diminished from 944 to 243, and those of males from 2626 to 1950. Since 1853 one association in New York, the Children's Aid Society, has found homes in the West for some 80,000 persons, most of them outcast, neglected, and orphan children, of whom over ninety-five per cent. have turned out well.+ England established her first public institution for juvenile offenders under the act of 1854.

We have now reviewed most of the important institutions which may be considered peculiarly American— that is, such as are found in this country, and not in all other countries claiming to be civilized. In our freedom from a State Church, the principle of equality underlying our whole system, in our written constitutions, the organization of our Senate, the power of our Supreme Court, our wide-spread local self-government, and our methods of transmitting and alienating land, we find, even to-day, the most radical differences between America and the mother country; while we also find that we

"A Half Century with Juvenile Delinquents." The census of 1890 shows that there are now in the United States about sixty of these juvenile reformatories. Census Bulletin No. 72.

+ See Report of Society for 1886, p. 17.

See Nineteenth Century, Jan., 1887; "Prison Discipline," by Lord Norton.

ORIGIN OF AMERICAN LAW

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have been leaders, and not followers, in those institutions where a resemblance now exists, such as our system of popular education, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the secret ballot, and the vast machinery of public charitable and reformatory work.

There still remains one subject to be considered in this connection, our American system of law, which is usually regarded as of English origin. To some persons, especially those of the legal profession, this topic seems of great importance; they call crimes by English names, use English phrases in their legal documents, read Eng. lish law-books, and are inclined to argue, from the standpoint of their studies, that we must be an English race, because we inherit the inestimable legacy of the Common Law.

The question as to our legal system has been already discussed, so far as relates to the most important subjects with which governments ever attempt to deal; that is, religion through the Church, education through the printing-press, means of subsistence through the land, and the development of manhood through local self-government. Compared with the law upon these subjects, which England certainly did not transmit to us, the rules by which states or individuals transact their ordinary business are but minor matters.

As for the machinery of justice in America, some features of it are important, for they have served to shape the national character; such are trial by jury, the right of accused persons to be defended by counsel, and the employment by the State of special officers for the prosecution of criminals. These may be regarded as institutions; and, as they are not common to all countries, their origin is on that account noteworthy, and will receive consideration in another place. But the body