The journal of prison discipline and philanthropy (Vol. XV, No. I, January 1860)
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public PrisonsSo deep are our convictions of the immeasurable evils inflicted on the community by bad gaols, that we accept an attempt to improve them, in any respect, as a token of good. If a cell that was dirty yesterday is clean to-day—if the sexes are separated—if, instead of allowing prisoners to herd together day and night, they are separated by night—if for darkness, dampness and a pestilential atmosphere, the light and air have free access—if, in a word, there is some decent respect shown to the species represented in these suspected and perhaps fallen, degraded, and certainly discreditable specimens of it—we take courage.
Of course we are prepared to congratulate our fellow-citizens of Baltimore, on the completion of a new and imposing city gaol. And though we could have wished they had adopted the principle of individual separation—which we cannot but regard as indispensable under any system, both as the duty of society and as the right of the offender—still, a well-constructed, wholesome
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