society, I greatly liked. Treating of its general characteristics,
I should be disposed to say that it is more provincial than Boston
or New York, and that there is afloat in the fair city, an
assumption of taste and criticism, savouring rather of those
genteel discussions upon the same themes, in connection with
Shakspeare and the Musical Glasses, of which we read in the Vicar
of Wakefield. Near the city, is a most splendid unfinished marble
structure for the Girard College, founded by a deceased gentleman
of that name and of enormous wealth, which, if completed according
to the original design, will be perhaps the richest edifice of
modern times. But the bequest is involved in legal disputes, and
pending them the work has stopped; so that like many other great
undertakings in America, even this is rather going to be done one
of these days, than doing now.
In the outskirts, stands a great prison, called the Eastern
Penitentiary: conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of
Pennsylvania. The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless
solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel
and wrong.
In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and
meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised
this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen
who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are
doing. I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the
immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment,
prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing
at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon
their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I
am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible
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endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom,
and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.
I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the
brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and
because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye
and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are
not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can
hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment
which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay. I hesitated
once, debating with myself, whether, if I had the power of saying
‘Yes’ or ‘No,’ I would allow it to be tried in certain cases, where
the terms of imprisonment were short; but now, I solemnly declare,
that with no rewards or honours could I walk a happy man beneath
the open sky by day, or lie me down upon my bed at night, with the
consciousness that one human creature, for any length of time, no
matter what, lay suffering this unknown punishment in his silent
cell, and I the cause, or I consenting to it in the least degree.
I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially
connected with its management, and passed the day in going from
cell to cell, and talking with the inmates. Every facility was
afforded me, that the utmost courtesy could suggest. Nothing was
concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information
that I sought, was openly and frankly given. The perfect order of
the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent
motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration
of the system, there can be no kind of question.
Between the body of the prison and the outer wall, there is a
spacious garden. Entering it, by a wicket in the massive gate, we
pursued the path before us to its other termination, and passed
into a large chamber, from which seven long passages radiate. On
either side of each, is a long, long row of low cell doors, with a
certain number over every one. Above, a gallery of cells like
those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as